Dans cette thèse, on utilise des outils mathématiques et numériques pour modéliser les écoulements tridimensionnels incompressibles à surface libre instationnaires. L'application industrielle visée est l'étude de la phase de remplissage des moules dans une fonderie. On développe un algorithme pour le transport de l'interface par la vitesse du fluide pour un fluide diphasique incompressible visqueux non-miscible de rapport de densité important en utilisant la méthode de caractéristiques pour traiter le problème de convection. Il y a des défis majeurs dans le contexte de la modélisation des fluides diphasiques. Tout d'abord, on doit prendre en considération l'évolution de l'interface et de ses changements topologiques. Deuxièmement, on doit traiter la non-linéarité convective de l'interface et de l'écoulement. Troisièmement, les équations de Navier-Stokes et du transport doivent être munies des conditions aux bords appropriées. En outre, il faut traiter soigneusement les singularités géométriques et topologiques à travers l'interface en particulier dans le cas de rapport de densité et viscosité important. On doit également maintenir la résolution d'une interface d'épaisseur nulle durant les cas du pliage, la rupture et la fusion de l'interface. Quatrièmement, on doit respecter les propriétés physiques telles que la conservation de la masse pour tout écoulement d'un fluide incompressible. Cinquièmement, il faut toujours penser aux limitations du temps de calcul et de mémoire pour résoudre ce genre de problème dans les cas pratiques. Notre but est de trouver un schéma fiable capable de modéliser le remplissage des moules tridimensionnelles industrielles. La première partie de cette thèse est dédiée à la description mathématique du schéma de transport de l'interface par la vitesse du fluide. Le mouvement des fluides est décrit par les équations de Navier-Stokes. L'interface est capturée par la fonction Level-Set. Le problème est discrétisée en espace par la méthode des éléments finis et en temps par la méthode de caractéristiques.Des conditions aux bords appropriées pour le problème du remplissage d'un moule sont introduites et un algorithme de calcul de la solution est présentée. Finalement,des résultats numériques montrent et valident l'efficacité duschéma proposé. Dans la deuxième partie de cette thèse, on introduit une méthode de décomposition de domaine qui correspond à la discrétisation par la méthode des caractéristiques dans le but d'améliorer la performance de l'algorithme proposé lors de la modélisation du remplissage des moules industrielles à moyennes séries. Des résultats numériques de comparaison valident la précision du code parallèle. / In this thesis, we use mathematical and numerical tools to model three dimensional incompressible laminar flows with free surface. The described industrial application is the study of the mould filling phase in a foundry. We develop an algorithm for the transport of the interface by the fluid velocity for a viscous incompressible immiscible fluids of high density ratio in two-phase flow using the method of characteristics for the convection problem.There are, however, major challenges in the context of two-phase flow modeling.First, we have to take into account the evolution of the interface and its topological changes. Second, we have to deal with the non-linearity for the convection of the flow and the interface. Third, we must assign appropriate boundary conditions to the flow and transport equations.In addition, care must be taken in treating the geometrical and topological singularities across the interface.We also have to maintain a sharp interface resolution, including the cases of interface folding, breaking and merging.Furthermore, we should respect the physical properties such as the mass conservation for any incompressible fluid flows.Finally, we have to keep in mind the limitations in the time of computation and memory to solve this kind of problem in practical cases. Our purpose is to find a reliable scheme able to model the filling of three dimensional industrial moulds.The first part of the thesis is devoted to the mathematical description of the interface transport scheme by the fluid velocity. The fluids motion is described by the Navier-Stokes equations. The interface is captured by the Level-Set function. The problem isdiscretized by the characteristics method in time and finiteelements method in space. The interface is captured by the Level-Setfunction. Appropriate boundary conditions for the problem ofmould filling are investigated, a new natural boundary conditionunder pressure effect for the transport equation is proposed andan algorithm for computing the solution is presented. Finally,numerical experiments show and validate the effectiveness of theproposed scheme.In the second part of the thesis, we introduce a domain decomposition method that suits the discretization by the method of characteristics in order to improve the performance of the proposed algorithm to model the filling phase for moulds of medium series. Numerical results of comparison validate the precision of the parallel code.

Cette thèse montre le développement d’un code de calcul pour les simulations numériques directes d’écoulements diphasiques compressibles avec évaporation. Un couplage entre les méthodes Level Set et VOF est réalisé pour le suivi d’interface. Afin de résoudre les équations de la mécanique des fluides, une méthode basée sur la pression est employée et, pour découpler la vitesse de la pression, une méthode de projection est effectuée. Cette méthode permet l’implicitation des termes liés à l’acoustique et donc de diminuer la contrainte sur le pas de temps. Le liquide et le gaz sont traités de manière compressible permettant des variations locales des masses volumiques grâce à l’utilisation d’équations d’état. L’évaporation est simulée de deux manières différentes ; une première, où un taux d’évaporation constant est employé et une seconde, où ce taux est calculé par la thermique. Parallèlement à ce sujet, une étude de la distribution des courbures dans une injection de liquide est réalisée. Cette étude permet d’étendre le concept de distribution des tailles de gouttes dans un spray et d’améliorer les informations disponibles dans le modèle ELSA. Enfin, une autre étude est effectuée sur la recherche d’un critère, basé sur les courbures à l’interface, pour estimer la qualité d’une simulation. / This PhD thesis shows the development of a numerical method for solving two-phase flows with vaporisation. A coupling between Level Set and VOF methods is realised for the interface capturing. In order to solve fluid mechanics equations, a pressure based method is employed and, to decouple velocity and pressure, a projection method is performed. This method allows the implicitation of the acoustic terms and the time step constraint reduction. Liquid and gas are considered as compressible allowing local density variations with equations of state. The vaporisation is computed in two different ways ; a first one where the vaporisation rate is constant and a second one, where this rate is calculated by thermodynamics. Along with this topic, a study on curvature distribution in a liquid injection configuration is realised. This study allows to extend the drop size distribution concept in a spray and to improve available informations on ELSA model. Finally, an other study is performed on thedevelopment of a criterion, based on interface curvatures, which estimates the quality of a simulation.

Les travaux présentés dans ce manuscrit se concentrent sur l'approximation numérique des équations de la magnétohydrodynamique (MHD) et sur leur stabilisation pour des problèmes caractérisés par des nombres de Reynolds cinétique élevés ou par des écoulements multiphasiques. Nous validons numériquement un nouveau modèle de Simulation des Grandes Echelles (ou Large Eddy Simulations, LES), dit de viscosité entropique, sur des écoulements de cylindre en précession ou créés par des turbines contra-rotatives (écoulement de Von Kármán). Ces études sont réalisées avec le code MHD SFEMaNS développé par J.-L. Guermond et C. Nore depuis 2002 pour des géométries axisymétriques. Ce code est basé sur une décomposition spectrale dans la direction azimutale et des éléments finis de Lagrange dans un plan méridien. Nous adaptons une méthode de pseudo-pénalisation pour prendre en compte des turbines en mouvement, ce qui étend le code SFEMaNS à des géométries quelconques. Nous présentons aussi une méthode originale d'approximation des équations de Navier-Stokes à densité variable qui utilise la quantité de mouvement comme variable et la viscosité entropique pour stabiliser les équations de la masse et du mouvement. / The investigations presented in this manuscript focus on the numerical approximation of the magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) equations and on their stabilization for problems involving either large kinetic Reynolds numbers or multiphase flows. We validate numerically a new Large Eddy Simulation (LES) model, called entropy viscosity, on flows driven by precessing cylindrical containers or counter-rotating impellers (Von Kármán flow). These studies are performed with SFEMaNS MHD-code developed by J.-L. Guermond and C. Nore since 2002 for axisymmetric geometries. This code is based on a spectral decomposition in the azimuthal direction and a Lagrange finite element approximation in a meridian plane. We adapt a pseudo-penalization method to report the action of rotating impellers that extends the range of SFEMaNS's applications to any geometry. We also present an original approximation method of the Navier-Stokes equations with variable density. This method uses the momentum as variable and stabilizes both mass and momentum equations with the same entropy viscosity.

Zweitveröffentlichung, ursprünglich veröffentlicht: Jonas Holley: Stress-Constrained Topology Optimization with Application to the Design of Electrical Machines. München: Verlag Dr. Hut, 2023, 199 Seiten, Dissertation Humboldt-Universität Berlin (2023). ISBN 978-3-8439-5378-8 / Während des Designprozesses physischer Gegenstände stellt die mechanische Stabilität in nahezu jedem Anwendungsbereich eine essentielle Anforderung dar. Stabilität kann mittels geeigneter Kriterien, die auf dem mechanischen Spannungstensor basieren, mathematisch quantifiziert werden. Dies dient dem Ziel der Vermeidung von Schädigung in jedem Punkt innerhalb des Gegenstands. Die vorliegende Arbeit behandelt die Entwicklung einer Methode zur Lösung von Designoptimierungsproblemen mit punktweisen Spannungsrestriktionen. Zunächst wird eine Regularisierung des Optimierungsproblems eingeführt, die einen zentralen Baustein für den Erfolg einer Lösungsmethode darstellt. Nach der Analyse des Problems hinsichtlich der Existenz von Lösungen wird ein Gradientenabstiegsverfahren basierend auf einer impliziten Designdarstellung und dem Konzept des topologischen Gradienten entwickelt. Da der entwickelte Ansatz eine Methode im Funktionenraum darstellt, ist die numerische Realisierung ein entscheidender Schritt in Richtung der praktischen Anwendung. Die Diskretisierung der Zustandsgleichung und der adjungierten Gleichung bildet die Basis für eine endlich-dimensionale Version des Optimierungsverfahrens. Im letzten Teil der Arbeit werden numerische Experimente durchgeführt, um die Leistungsfähigkeit des entwickelten Algorithmus zu bewerten. Zunächst wird das Problem des minimalen Volumens unter punktweisen Spannungsrestriktionen anhand der L-Balken Geometrie untersucht. Ein Schwerpunkt wird hierbei auf die Untersuchung der Regularisierung gelegt. Danach wird das multiphysikalische Design einer elektrischen Maschine adressiert. Zusätzlich zu den punktweisen Restriktionen an die mechanischen Spannungen wird die Maximierung des mittleren Drehmoments berücksichtigt, um das elektromagnetische Verhalten der Maschine zu optimieren. Der Erfolg der numerischen Tests demonstriert das Potential der entwickelten Methode in der Behandlung realistischer industrieller Problemstellungen. / In the process of designing a physical object, the mechanical stability is an essential requirement in nearly every area of application. Stability can be quantified mathematically by suitable criteria based on the stress tensor, aiming at the prevention of damage in each point within the physical object. This thesis deals with the development of a framework for the solution of optimal design problems with pointwise stress constraints. First, a regularization of the optimal design problem is introduced. This perturbation of the original problem represents a central element for the success of a solution method. After analyzing the perturbed problem with respect to the existence of solutions, a line search type gradient descent scheme is developed based on an implicit design representation via a level set function. The core of the optimization method is provided by the topological gradient, which quantifies the effect of an infinitesimal small topological perturbation of a given design on an objective functional. Since the developed approach is a method in function space, the numerical realization is a crucial step towards its practical application. The discretization of the state and adjoint equation provide the basis for developing a finite-dimensional version of the optimization scheme. In the last part of the thesis, numerical experiments are conducted in order to assess the performance of the developed algorithm. First, the stress-constrained minimum volume problem for the L-Beam geometry is addressed. An emphasis is put on examining the effect of the proposed regularization. Afterwards, the multiphysical design of an electrical machine is addressed. In addition to the pointwise constraints on the mechanical stress, the maximization of the mean torque is considered in order to improve the electromagnetic performance of the machine. The success of the numerical tests demonstrate the potential of the developed design method in dealing with real industrial problems.

A general framework is described for the solution of two-phase fluid-object interaction problems on the basis of coupling a distributed-Lagrange-multiplier fictitious domain method and a level-set method, intended for application to the problem of seabed scour by ice ridges. The resulting equations are discretized in space using stabilized finite-element methods and integrated in time using the generalized-α method. This approach is simple to implement and applicable to both structured and unstructured meshes in two and three dimensions. By means of examples, it is shown that despite the simplicity of the approach, good results are obtained in comparison with other more computationally demanding methods. A robust approach is utilized for constructing signed-distance functions on arbitrary meshes by introducing artificial numerical diffusivity to improve the robustness of classical signed-distance construction approaches without resorting to common pseudo-time relaxation. Under this approach, signed-distance functions can be rapidly constructed while preserving the numerical convergence properties and, generally, having minimal interfacial perturbation. The method is then applied with a modified deformation procedure for fast and efficient mesh adaptivity, including a discussion how it may be used in computational fluid dynamics. The two-phase fluid-object interaction approach is then customized for modeling of the seabed scour and soil-pipe interaction. In this approach, complex history-dependent soil constitutive models are replaced with a simple strain-rate dependent model. Utilization of this constitutive model along with the framework developed earlier leads to the treatment of seabed scour as a two-phase fluid-object interaction, and the soil-pipe interaction as a fluid-structure interaction problem without the need for remeshing. Good agreement with past experimental and numerical studies are obtained using our approach. The dissertation is concluded by conducting a parametric study of seabed scour in two- and three-dimensions. / text

Interface tracking methods for segregated flows such as breaking ocean waves are an important tool in marine engineering. With the development in marine renewable devices increasing and a multitude of other marine flow problems that benefit from the possibility of simulation on computer, the need for accurate free surface solvers capable of solving wave simulations has never been greater. An important component of successfully simulating segregated flow of any type is accurately tracking the position of the separating interface between fluids. It is desirable to represent the interface as a sharp, smooth, continuous entity in simulations. Popular Eulerian interface tracking methods appropriate for segregated flows such as the Marker and Cell Method (MAC) and the Volume of Fluid (VOF) were considered. However these methods have drawbacks with smearing of the interface and high computational costs in 3D simulations being among the most prevalent. This PhD project uses a level set method to implicitly represent an interface. The level set method is a signed distance function capable of both sharp and smooth representations of a free surface. It was found, over time, that the level set function ceases to represent a signed distance due to interaction of local velocity fields. This affects the accuracy to which the level set can represent a fluid interface, leading to mass loss. An advection solver, the Cubic Interpolated Polynomial (CIP) method, is presented and tested for its ability to transport a level set interface around a numerical domain in 2D. An advection problem of the level set function demonstrates the mass loss that can befall the method. To combat this, a process known as reinitialisation can be used to re-distance the level set function between time-steps, maintaining better accuracy. The goal of this PhD project is to present a new numerical gradient approximation that allows for the extension of the reinitialisation method to unstructured numerical grids. A particular focus is the Cartesian cut cell grid method. It allows geometric boundaries of arbitrary complexity to be cut from a regular Cartesian grid, allowing for flexible high quality grid generation with low computational cost. A reinitialisation routine using 1st order gradient approximation is implemented and demonstrated with 1D and 2D test problems. An additional area-conserving constraint is introduced to improve accuracy further. From the results, 1st order gradient approximation is shown to be inadequate for improving the accuracy of the level set method. To obtain higher accuracy and the potential for use on unstructured grids a novel gradient approximation based on a slope limited least squares method, suitable for level set reinitialisation, is developed. The new gradient scheme shows a significant improvement in accuracy when compared with level set reinitialisation methods using a lower order gradient approximation on a structured grid. A short study is conducted to find the optimal parameters for running 2D level set interface tracking and the new reinitialisation method. The details of the steps required to implement the current method on a Cartesian cut cell grid are discussed. Finally, suggestions for future work using the methods demonstrated in the thesis are presented.

Medical imaging is an important part of the clinical workflow. With the increasing amount and complexity of image data comes the need for automatic (or semi-automatic) analysis methods which aid the physician in the exploration of the data. One specific imaging technique is angiography, in which the blood vessels are imaged using an injected contrast agent which increases the contrast between blood and surrounding tissue. In these images, the blood vessels can be viewed as tubular structures with varying diameters. Deviations from this structure are signs of disease, such as stenoses introducing reduced blood flow, or aneurysms with a risk of rupture. This thesis focuses on segmentation and visualization of blood vessels, consituting the vascular tree, in angiography images. Segmentation is the problem of partitioning an image into separate regions. There is no general segmentation method which achieves good results for all possible applications. Instead, algorithms use prior knowledge and data models adapted to the problem at hand for good performance. We study blood vessel segmentation based on a two-step approach. First, we model the vessels as a collection of linear structures which are detected using multi-scale filtering techniques. Second, we develop machine-learning based level set segmentation methods to separate the vessels from the background, based on the output of the filtering. In many applications the three-dimensional structure of the vascular tree has to be presented to a radiologist or a member of the medical staff. For this, a visualization technique such as direct volume rendering is often used. In the case of computed tomography angiography one has to take into account that the image depends on both the geometrical structure of the vascular tree and the varying concentration of the injected contrast agent. The visualization should have an easy to understand interpretation for the user, to make diagnostical interpretations reliable. The mapping from the image data to the visualization should therefore closely follow routines that are commonly used by the radiologist. We developed an automatic method which adapts the visualization locally to the contrast agent, revealing a larger portion of the vascular tree while minimizing the manual intervention required from the radiologist. The effectiveness of this method is evaluated in a user study involving radiologists as domain experts.

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

Midline shift (MLS), the amount of displacement of the brain’s midline from its normal symmetric position due to illness or injury, is an important index for clinicians to assess the severity of traumatic brain injury (TBI). In this dissertation, an automated computer-aided midline shift estimation system is proposed. First, a CT slice selection algorithm (SSA) is designed to automatically select a subset of appropriate CT slices from a large number of raw images for MLS detection. Next, ideal midline detection is implemented based on skull bone anatomical features and global rotation assumptions. For the actual midline detection algorithm, a window selection algorithm (WSA) is applied first to confine the region of interest, then the variational level set method is used to segment the image and extract the ventricle contours. With a ventricle identification algorithm (VIA), the position of actual midline is detected based on the identified right and left lateral ventricle contours. Finally, the brain midline shift is calculated using the positions of detected ideal midline and actual midline. One of the important applications of midline shift in clinical medical decision making is to estimate the intracranial pressure (ICP). ICP monitoring is a standard procedure in the care of severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) patients. An automated ICP level prediction model based on machine learning method is proposed in this work. Multiple features, including midline shift, intracranial air cavities, ventricle size, texture patterns, and blood amount, are used in the ICP level prediction. Finally, the results are evaluated to assess the effectiveness of the proposed method in ICP level prediction.

The purpose of this thesis is to further develop numerical methods for solving surface problems by utilizing tangential calculus and the trace finite element method. Direct computation on the surface is possible by the use of tangential calculus, in contrast to the classical approach of mapping 2D parametric surfaces to 3D surfaces by means of differential geometry operators. Using tangential calculus, the problem formulation is only dependent on the position and normal vectors of the 3D surface. Tangential calculus thus enables a clean, simple and inexpensive formulation and implementation of finite element methods for surface problems. Meshing techniques are greatly simplified from the end-user perspective by utilizing an unfitted finite element method called the Trace Finite Element Method, in which the basic idea is to embed the surface in a higher dimensional mesh and use the shape functions of this background mesh for the discretization of the partial differential equation. This method makes it possible to model surfaces implicitly and solve surface problems without the need for expensive meshing/re-meshing techniques especially for moving surfaces or surfaces embedded in 3D solids, so called embedded interface problems. Using these two approaches, numerical methods for solving three surface problems are proposed: 1) minimal surface problems, in which the form that minimizes the mean curvature was computed by iterative update of a level-set function discretized using TraceFEM and driven by advection, for which the velocity field was given by the mean curvature flow, 2) elastic membrane problems discretized using linear and higher order TraceFEM, which makes it straightforward to embed complex geometries of membrane models into an elastic bulk for reinforcement and 3) stabilized, accurate vertex normal and mean curvature estimation with local refinement on triangulated surfaces. In this thesis the basics of the two main approaches are presented, some aspects such as stabilization and surface reconstruction are further developed, evaluated and numerically analyzed, details on implementations are provided and the current state of work is presented.