Two immersed boundary methods (IBM) for the simulation of conjugate heat transfer problems with complex geometries are introduced: a finite element (IFEM) and a finite volume (IFVM) immersed boundary methods are discussed. In the IFEM a projection approach is presented for the coupled system of time-dependent incompressible Navier-Stokes equations (NSEs) and energy equation in conjunction with the immersed boundary method for solving fluid flow and heat transfer problems in the presence of rigid objects not represented by the underlying mesh. The IBM allows solving the flow for geometries with complex objects without the need of generating a body-fitted mesh. Dirichlet boundary constraints are satisfied applying a boundary force at the immersed body surface. Using projection and interpolation operators from the fluid volume mesh to the solid surface mesh (i.e., the “immersed” boundary) and vice versa, it is possible to impose the extra constraint to the NSEs as a Lagrange multiplier in a fashion very similar to the effect pressure has on the momentum equations to satisfy the divergence-free constraint. The IFEM approach presented shows third order accuracy in space and second order accuracy in time when the simulation results for the Taylor-Green decaying vortex are compared to the analytical solution. For the IFVM a ghost-cell approach with sharp interface scheme is used to enforce the boundary condition at the fluid/solid interface. The interpolation procedure at the immersed boundary preserves the overall second order accuracy of the base solver. The developed ghost-cell method is applied on a staggered configuration with the Semi-Implicit Method for Pressure-Linked Equations Revised algorithm. Second order accuracy in space and first order accuracy in time are obtained when the Taylor-Green decaying vortex test case is compared to the IFVM analytical solution. Computations were performed using the IFEM and IFVM approaches for the two-dimensional flow over a backward-facing step, two-dimensional flow past a stationary circular cylinder, three-dimensional flow past a sphere and two and three-dimensional natural convection in an enclosure with/without immersed body. The numerical results obtained with the discussed IFEM and IFVM were compared against other IBMs available in literature and simulations performed with the commercial computational fluid dynamics code STAR-CCM+/V7.04.006. The benchmark test cases showed that the numerical results obtained with the implemented immersed boundary methods are in good agreement with the predictions from STAR-CCM+ and the numerical data from the other IBMs. The immersed boundary method based of finite element approach is numerically more accurate than the IBM based on finite volume discretization. In contrast, the latter is computationally more efficient than the former.

In this dissertation, we explore direct-forcing immersed boundary methods (IBM) under the framework of the lattice Boltzmann method (LBM), which is called the direct-forcing immersed boundary-lattice Boltzmann method (IB-LBM). First, we derive the direct-forcing formula based on the split-forcing lattice Boltzmann equation, which recovers the Navier-Stokes equation with second-order accuracy and enables us to develop a simple and accurate formula due to its kinetic nature. Then, we assess the various interface schemes under the derived direct-forcing formula. We consider not only diffuse interface schemes but also a sharp interface scheme. All tested schemes show a second-order overall accuracy. In the simulation of stationary complex boundary flows, we can observe that the sharper the interface scheme is, the more accurate the results are. The interface schemes are also applied to moving boundary problems. The sharp interface scheme shows better accuracy than the diffuse interface schemes but generates spurious oscillation in the boundary forcing terms due to the discontinuous change of nodes for the interpolation. In contrast, the diffuse interface schemes show smooth change in the boundary forcing terms but less accurate results because of discrete delta functions. Hence, the diffuse interface scheme with a corrected radius can be adopted to obtain both accurate and smooth results. Finally, a direct-forcing immersed boundary method (IBM) for the thermal lattice Boltzmann method (TLBM) is proposed to simulate non-isothermal flows. The direct-forcing IBM formulas for thermal equations are derived based on two TLBM models: a double-population model with a simplified thermal lattice Boltzmann equation (Model 1) and a hybrid model with an advection-diffusion equation of temperature (Model 2). The proposed methods are validated through natural convection problems with stationary and moving boundaries. In terms of accuracy, the results obtained from the IBMs based on both models are comparable and show a good agreement with those from other numerical methods. In contrast, the IBM based on Model 2 is more numerically efficient than the IBM based on Model 1. Overall, this study serves to establish the feasibility of the direct-forcing IB-LBM as a viable tool for computing various complex and/or moving boundary flow problems.

Immersed boundary methods are a class of techniques in computational fluid dynamics where the Navier-Stokes equations are simulated on a computational grid that does not conform to the interfaces in the domain of interest. This facilitates the simulation of flows with complex moving and deforming geometries without considerable effort wasted in generating the mesh. The first part of this dissertation is concerned with the aerodynamics of the cross-section of a species of flying snake, Chrysopelea paradisi (paradise tree snake). Past experiments have shown that the unique cross-section of this snake, which can be described as a lifting bluff body, produces an unusual lift curve--with a pronounced peak in lift coefficient at an angle of attack of 35 degrees for Reynolds numbers 9000 and beyond. We studied the aerodynamics of the cross-section using a 2-D immersed boundary method code. We were able to qualitatively reproduce the spike in the lift coefficient at the same angle of attack for flows beyond a Reynolds number of 2000. This phenomenon was associated with flow separation at the leading edge of the body that did not result in a stall. This produced a stronger vortex and an associated reduction in pressure on the dorsal surface of the snake cross-section, which resulted in higher lift. The second part of this work deals with the analysis of the direct forcing method, which is a popular immersed boundary method for flows with rigid boundaries. We begin with the fully discretized Navier-Stokes equations along with the appropriate boundary conditions applied at the solid boundary, and derive the fractional step method as an approximate block LU decomposition of this system. This results in an alternate formulation of the direct forcing method that takes into consideration mass conservation at the immersed boundaries and also handles the pressure boundary conditions more consistently. We demonstrate that this method is between first and second-order accurate in space when linear interpolation is used to enforce the boundary conditions on velocity. We then develop a theory for the order of accuracy of the direct forcing method with linear interpolation. For a simple 1-D case, we show that the method can converge at a range of rates for different locations of the solid body with respect to the mesh. But this effect averages out in higher dimensions and results in a scheme that has the same order of accuracy as the expected order of accuracy of the interpolation at the boundary. The discrete direct forcing method for the Navier-Stokes equations exhibits an order of accuracy between 1 and 2 because the velocities at the boundary are linearly interpolated, but the resulting boundary conditions on the pressure gradient turn out to be only first-order accurate. We recommend linearly interpolating the pressure gradient as well to make the method fully second-order accurate. We have also developed two open source codes in the course of these studies. The first, cuIBM, is a two-dimensional immersed boundary method code that runs on a single GPU. It can simulate incompressible flow around rigid bodies with prescribed motion. It is based on the general idea of a fractional step method as an approximate block LU decomposition, and can incorporate any type of immersed boundary method that can be made to fit within this framework. The second code, PetIBM, can simulate both two and three-dimensional incompressible flow and runs in parallel on multiple CPUs. Both codes have been validated using well-known test cases.

Immersed boundary (IB) methods are attractive due to their ability to simulate flow over complex geometries on a simple Cartesian mesh. Unlike conformal grid formulation, the mesh does not need to conform to the shape and orientation of the boundary. This eliminates the need for complex mesh and/or re-meshing in simulations with moving/morphing boundaries, which can be cumbersome and computationally expensive. However, the imposition of boundary conditions in IB methods is not straightforward and numerous modifications and refinements have been proposed and a number of variants of this approach now exist. In a nutshell, IB methods in the literature often suffer from numerical oscillations, implementation complexity, time-step restriction, burred interface, and lack of generality. This limits their ability to mimic conformal grid results and enforce Neumann boundary conditions. In addition, there is no generic IB capable of solving flow with multiple potentials, closely/loosely packed structures as well as IBs of infinitesimal thickness. This dissertation describes a novel 2$ ^{\text{nd}} $ order direct forcing immersed boundary method designed for simulation of two- and three-dimensional incompressible flow problems with complex immersed boundaries. In this formulation, each cell cut by the IB is reshaped to conform to the shape of the IB. IBs are modeled as a series of 2D planes in 3D space that connect seamlessly at the edges of the cut cells, in a way that mimics conformal grid. IBs are represented in a continuous and consistent fashion from one cell to another, thus eliminating spatial pressure oscillations originating from inconsistent description of the IB as well as the traditional stair-step problem, leading to a more accurate resolution of the boundary layer. Boundary conditions are enforced at the exact location of the IB devoid of interpolation, which guarantees sound simulations even on grids with high aspect ratio, and enables simulations of flow packed with multiple IBs in close proximity. Boundary conditions for each phase across the IB are enforced independently, yielding a unique capability to solve flows with zero-thickness IBs. Simulations of a large number of 2D and 3D test cases confirm the prowess of the devised immersed boundary method in solving flows over multiple loosely/closely-packed IBs; stationary, moving and highly morphing IBs; as well as IBs with zero-thickness. Extension of the proposed scheme to solve flow with multiple potentials is demonstrated by simulating transfer and transport of a passive scalar from an array of side-by-side and tandem cylinders in cross-flow. Aquatic vegetation represented by a colony of circular cylinders with low to high solid fraction is simulated to showcase the prowess of the current numerical technique in solving flow with closely packed structures. Aquatic vegetation studies are extended to a colony of flat plates with different orientations to show the capability of the developed method in modeling zero-thickness structures.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / In this work, the combined multi-direct forcing and immersed boundary method (IBM) were presented to simulate uid-structure interaction problems. The multi-direct forcing is used aim at satisfying the no-slip condition in the immersed boundary. For the numerical simulations was used a multi-purpose computer code that is being developed in the MFlab - Fluid Mechanics Laboratory of Federal University of Uberl^andia. Tests are made to validate the numerical schemes and routines were implemented to simulate uid-structures interaction problems. Furthermore, computational tools are developed to construct and manage and optimize the use of a Beowulf cluster where all the parallel simulations presented in this work were done. The Method of Manufactured Solutions has been used for order-of-accuracy verication in the computational uid dynamics code. Two uid-structure interaction problems were studied using this methodology. The rst is a ow over a sphere for some Reynolds numbers. The results were compared to empirical results, obtaining satisfactory approximations. The second one is a immersed simple pendulum. For this problem the results are in agreement with physics. Indeed, these are preliminar results. New tests must be done to make progress in the methodology. Improvements are proposed in the IBM, in the uid-structure model, in the turbulence model, in the method used to discretize the uid domain. It is also proposed to apply the methodology to real problems as risers and valves. / O presente trabalho tem como principal objetivo a aplicação do método multifoçagem (MMF) para solução numérica tridimensional de problemas de interação uidoestrutura, buscando-se garantir a condição de não-escorregamento na região da fronteira imersa. Para as simulações numéricas foi utilizado um código computacional multipropósito em desenvolvimento no MFlab - Laboratório de Mecânica dos Fluidos da Universidade Federal de Uberlândia. Foram feitas modificações nesse código para que se pudesse validá-lo para solução de problemas com fronteira imersa e foi implementada uma rotina para solução de um problema de interação uido-estrutura total. Além disso, foi desenvolvido um pacote de ferramentas computacionais que possibilitou instalar e melhorar o desempenho de um cluster do tipo Beowulf utilizado para o desenvolvimento das simulações num eriças em paralelo do presente trabalho. Utilizando o Método das Soluções Manufaturadas foram obtidas soluções sintetizadas para as equações de Navier-Stokes, o que possibilitou obter a ordem de convergência numérica do código computacional para problemas contínuos e a validação deste código para problemas envolvendo corpos imersos ao combinar a o método das soluções manufaturadas com a metodologia de fronteira imersa. Na sequência foi solucionado o problema de escoamento ao redor de uma esfera parada, cujos resultados foram comparados com referencias empíricas, obtendo-se boa aproximação. Ainda para esse caso foi feita a avalição da norma L2 para as soluções num eriças obtidas nos pontos lagrangianos verificando a garantia da condição de não-escorregamento e feita uma análise da inuência dos número de ciclos utilizados no método multi-forçagem. Foi vericado que a solução numérica obtida depende do número de ciclos o que faz com que seja necessário se estabelecer um critério de convergência para este método. Um segundo problema de interação uido-estrutura total foi estudado. Consiste em um pêndulo simples imerso em um uido que parte de uma dada posição angular inicial e oscila em torno da sua posição de equilíbrio, até parar. Para esse caso foram feitas análises quantitativas. Os resultados são preliminares mas coerentes com a física do problema, indicando que a metodologia é adequada para solução deste tipo de problema. / Mestre em Engenharia Mecânica