A block-based adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) finite-volume scheme is developed for solution of hyperbolic conservation laws on two-dimensional hybrid multi-block meshes. A Godunov-type upwind finite-volume spatial-discretization scheme, with piecewise limited linear reconstruction and Riemann-solver based flux functions, is applied to the quadrilateral cells of a hybrid multi-block mesh and these computational cells are embedded in either body-fitted structured or general unstructured grid partitions of the hybrid grid. A hierarchical quadtree data structure is used to allow local refinement of the individual subdomains based on heuristic physics-based refinement criteria. An efficient and scalable parallel implementation of the proposed algorithm is achieved via domain decomposition. The performance of the proposed scheme is demonstrated through application to solution of the compressible Euler equations for a number of flow configurations and regimes in two space dimensions. The efficiency of the AMR procedure and accuracy, robustness, and scalability of the hybrid mesh scheme are assessed.

The focus of this thesis is optimal path planning. The path planning problem is posed as an optimal control problem, for which the viscosity solution to the static Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) equation is used to determine the optimal path. The Ordered Upwind Method (OUM) has been previously used to numerically approximate the viscosity solution of the static HJB equation for direction-dependent weights. The contributions of this thesis include an analytical bound on the convergence rate of the OUM for the boundary value problem to the viscosity solution of the HJB equation. The convergence result provided in this thesis is to our knowledge the tightest existing bound on the convergence order of OUM solutions to the viscosity solution of the static HJB equation. Only convergence without any guarantee of rate has been previously shown. Navigation functions are often used to provide controls to robots. These functions can suffer from local minima that are not also global minima, which correspond to the inability to find a path at those minima. Provided the weight function is positive, the viscosity solution to the static HJB equation cannot have local minima. Though this has been discussed in literature, a proof has not yet appeared. The solution of the HJB equation is shown in this work to have no local minima that is not also global. A path can be found using this method. Though finding the shortest path is often considered in optimal path planning, safe and energy efficient paths are required for rover path planning. Reducing instability risk based on tip-over axes and maximizing solar exposure are important to consider in achieving these goals. In addition to obstacle avoidance, soil risk and path length on terrain are considered. In particular, the tip-over instability risk is a direction-dependent criteria, for which accurate approximate solutions to the static HJB equation cannot be found using the simpler Fast Marching Method. An extension of the OUM to include a bi-directional search for the source-point path planning problem is also presented. The solution is found on a smaller region of the environment, containing the optimal path. Savings in computational time are observed. A comparison is made in the path planning problem in both timing and performance between a genetic algorithm rover path planner and OUM. A comparison in timing and number of updates required is made between OUM and several other algorithms that approximate the same static HJB equation. Finally, the OUM algorithm solving the boundary value problem is shown to converge numerically with the rate of the proven theoretical bound.

Shallow water equations are widely used to model water flows in the field of hydrodynamics and civil engineering. They are complex, and except for some simplified cases, no analytical solution exists for them. Therefore, the partial differential equations of the shallow water system have been the subject of various numerical analyses and studies in past decades. In this study, we construct a stable and robust finite volume scheme for the shallow water equations over quadtree grids. Quadtree grids are two-dimensional semi-structured Cartesian grids that have different applications in several fields of engineering, such as computational fluid dynamics. Quadtree grids refine or coarsen where it is required in the computational domain, which gives the advantage of reducing the computational cost in some problems. Numerical schemes on quadtree grids have different properties. An accurate and robust numerical scheme is able to provide a balance between the flux and source terms, preserve the positivity of the water height and water surface, and is capable of regenerating the grid with respect to different conditions of the problem and computed solution. The proposed scheme uses a piecewise constant approximation and employs a high-order Runge-Kutta method to be able to make the solution high-order in space and time. Hence, in this thesis, we develop an adaptive well-balanced positivity preserving scheme for the shallow water system over quadtree grids utilizing different techniques. We demonstrate the formulations of the proposed scheme over one of the different configurations of quadtree cells. Six numerical benchmark tests confirm the ability of the scheme to accurately solve the problems and to capture small perturbations. Furthermore, we extend the proposed scheme to the coupled variable density shallow water flows and establish an extended method where we focus on eliminating nonphysical oscillations, as well as well-balanced, positivity preserving, and adaptivity properties of the scheme. Four different numerical benchmark tests show that the proposed extension of the scheme is accurate, stable, and robust.

No / Nazarbayev University Seed Grant, entitled “Environmental assessment of sediment pollution impact on hydropower plants”.

The issue of the effects of free stream turbulence on the flow field over a surface-mounted prism is examined through experimental and numerical investigations. In the experimental studies, particle image velocimetry measurements are conducted in the ESM water tunnel at Reynolds number of $9,600$ and under two cases of turbulent inflow conditions. The results show that the mean flow separation, reattachment and parameters such as mean velocity, root mean square, Reynolds stresses and turbulent kinetic energy are affected by the turbulence characteristics of the incident flow. The instantaneous dynamics of the interactions between the separating shear layer and the solid wall and between the shear layer and the turbulence in the incident flow are detailed. In the numerical studies, large eddy simulations of the flow over a surface-mounted prism under two inflow conditions, namely, smooth inflow and isotropic homogeneous turbulence inflow, are performed. The use of a fifth-order scheme (CUD-II-5), which is a member of a family of Compact Upwind Difference schemes, in large eddy simulations of this flow is assessed. The performance of this scheme is validated by comparing the rate of temporal decay of isotropic turbulence with available experimental measurements for grid-generated turbulence. The results show that the spectra are sensitive to the method of flux vector splitting needed for the implementation of the upwind scheme. With van Leer splitting, the CUD-II-5 scheme is found to be too dissipative. On the other hand, using the Lax-Friedrichs vector splitting yields good agreement with experiments by controlling the level of artificial dissipation. This led us to recommend a new procedure, we denote by C6CUD5 scheme, that combines a compact sixth-order scheme with the CUD-II-5 scheme for large eddy simulation of complex flows. The simulation results, including flow patterns, pressure fields and turbulence statistics show that the CUD-II-5 scheme, with Lax-Friedricks flux vector splitting, provides high resolution of local flow structures. The results present new physical aspects of the flow topology over surface-mounted prisms. The effects of the incident homogeneous turbulence on the size of the separation region and suction pressures are determined by pointing out differences in the flow topologies between the two incident flow cases. / Ph. D.

Este trabalho de pesquisa é dedicado ao desenvolvimento, análise e implementação de um novo esquema upwind de alta resolução (denominada PFDPUS) para a aproximação de termos convectivos em leis de conservação e problemas relacionados em mecânica dos fluídos. Usando variáveis normalizadas de Leonard, o equema PFDPUS é baseado em uma função polinomial por partes que satisfaz os critérios de estabilidade CBC e TVD. O desempenho do esquema PEDPUS é investigado na solução das equações de advecção de escalares, Burgers, Euler e MHD. O novo esquema é então aplicado para simular escoamentos incompressíveis envolvendo superfícies livres móveis. Para tanto, o esquema PFDPUS é implementado dentro do software CLAWPACK para problemas compressíveis, e no código Freeflow para poblemas incompressíveis. Os resultados numéricos são comparados com dados experimentais, numéricos e analíticos / This work is dedicated to the development, analysis and implementation of a new high-resolution upwind scheme (called PFDPUS) for approximation of convective terms in conservation laws and related fluid mechanics problems. By using the normalized variables of Leonard, the PFDPUS scheme is based on a piecewise polynomical function that satisfies the CBC and TVD stability criteria. The performance of the PFDPUS scheme is assessed by solving advection of scalars, Burgers, Euler and MHD equations. Then the new scheme is applied to simulate incompressible flows involving moving free surfaces. The PFDPUS scheme is implemented into the CLAWPACK software for compressible problems, and in the Freeflow code for incompressible problems. The numerical results are compared with experimental, numerical and analytical data

Este trabalho é dedicado à análise e implementação de esquemas "upwind" de alta ordem modernos e o modelo de turbulência k-epsilon padrão no Freeflow-2D; um ambiente integrado para simulação numérica em diferenças finitas de problemas de escoamentos incompressíveis com superfícies livres. O propósito do estudo é a simulação de escoamentos de fluidos newtonianos incompressíveis, bidimensionais, confinados e/ou com superfícies livres e a altos valores do número de Reynolds. O desempenho do código Freeflow-2D atual é avaliada na simulação do escoamento numa expansão brusca e de um jato livre incidindo perpendicularmente sobre uma superfície rígida impermeável. O código é então aplicado na simulação de um jato planar turbulento em uma porção de fluido com superfície livre e estacionário. Os resultados numéricos obtidos são comparados com dados experimentais, soluções analíticas e soluções numéricas de outros trabalhos. / This work is devoted to the analysis and implementation of modern high-order upwind schemes and the standard k-epsilon turbulence model into the Freeflow-2D; a finite difference integrated environment for the numerical simulation of incompressible free surface flow problems. The purpose of this study is the two-dimensional simulation of high-Reynolds incompressible newtonian confined and/or free surface flows. The performance of the current Freeflow-2D code is assessed by applying it to the simulation of flow over a backward facing step and of an impinging free jet onto an impermeable rigid surface. The code is then applied to a turbulent planar jet into a pool. The numerical results are compared with experimental data, analytical solution, and numerical simulations of other works.

With increasing demand for computational solutions of fluid dynamical problems, researchers around the world are working on the development of highly robust numerical schemes capable of solving flow problems around complex geometries arising in Aerospace engineering. Also considerable time and effort are devoted to development of convergence acceleration devices, for reducing the computational time required for such numerical solutions. Reduction in run times is very vital for production codes which are used many times in design cycle. In this present work, we consider a numerical scheme called LSKUM capable of operating on any arbitrary distribution of points. LSKUM is being used in CFD center (IIsc) and DRDL (Hyderabad) to compute flows around practical geometries and presently these LSKUM based codes are explicit- It has been observed already by the earlier researchers that the explicit schemes for these methods are robust. Therefore, it is absolutely essential to consider the possibility of accelerating explicit LSKUM by making it LSKUM-Implicit. The present thesis focuses on such a study. We start with two kinetic schemes namely Least Squares Kinetic Upwind Method (LSKUM) and LSKUM based on entropy variables (q-LSKUM). We have developed the following two implicit schemes using LSKUM and q-LSKUM. They are (i)Non-Linear Iterative Implicit Scheme called LSKUM-NII. (ii)Linearized Beam and Warming implicit Scheme, called LSKUM-BW. For the purpose of demonstration of efficiency of the newly developed above implicit schemes, we have considered flow past NACA0012 airfoil as a test example. In this regard we have tested these implicit schemes for flow regimes mentioned below •Subsonic Case: M∞ = 0.63, a.o.a = 2.0° •Transonic Case: M∞ = 0.85, a.o.a = 1.0° The speedup of the above two implicit schemes has been studied in this thesis by operating them on different grid sizes given below •Coarse Grid: 4074 points •Medium Grid: 8088 points •Fine Grid: 16594 points The results obtained by running these implicit schemes are found to be very much encouraging. It has been observed that these newly developed implicit schemes give as much as 2.8 times speedup compared to their corresponding explicit versions. Further improvement is possible by combining LKSUM-Implicit with modern iterative methods of solving resultant algebraic equations. The present work is a first step towards this objective.

Least Squares Kinetic Upwind Method (LSKUM), a grid free method based on kinetic schemes has been gaining popularity over the conventional CFD methods for computation of inviscid and viscous compressible flows past complex configurations. The main reason for the growth of popularity of this method is its ability to work on any point distribution. The grid free methods do not require the grid for flow simulation, which is an essential requirement for all other conventional CFD methods. However, they do require point distribution or a cloud of points. Point generation is relatively simple and less time consuming to generate as compared to grid generation. There are various methods for point generation like an advancing front method, a quadtree based point generation method, a structured grid generator, an unstructured grid generator or a combination of above, etc. One of the easiest ways of point generation around complex geometries is to overlap the simple point distributions generated around individual constituent parts of the complex geometry. The least squares grid free method has been successfully used to solve a large number of flow problems over the years. However, it has been observed that some problems are still encountered while using this method on point distributions around complex configurations. Close analysis of the problems have revealed that bad connectivity of the nodes is the cause and this leads to bad connectivity related code divergence. The least squares (LS) grid free method called LSKUM involves discretization of the spatial derivatives using the least squares approach. The formulae for the spatial derivatives are obtained by minimizing the sum of the squares of the error, leading to a system of linear algebraic equations whose solution gives us the formulae for the spatial derivatives. The least squares matrix A for 1-D and 2-D cases respectively is given by (Refer PDF File for equation) The 1-D LS formula for the spatial derivatives is always well behaved in the sense that ∑∆xi2 can never become zero. In case of 2-D problems can arise. It is observed that the elements of the Ls matrix A are functions of the coordinate differentials of the nodes in the connectivity. The bad connectivity of a node thus can have an adverse effect on the nature of the LS matrices. There are various types of bad connectivities for a node like insufficient number of nodes in the connectivity, highly anisotropic distribution of nodes in the connectivity stencil, the nodes falling nearly on a line (or a plane in 3-D), etc. In case of multidimensions, the case of all nodes in a line will make the matrix A singular thereby making its inversion impossible. Also, an anisotropic distribution of nodes in the connectivity can make the matrix A highly illconditioned thus leading to either loss in accuracy or code divergence. To overcome this problem, the approach followed so far is to modify the connectivity by including more neighbours in the connectivity of the node. In this thesis, we have followed a different approach of using weights to alter the nature of the LS matrix A. (Refer PDF File for equation) The weighted LS formulae for the spatial derivatives in 1-D and 2-D respectively are are all positive. So we ask a question : Can we reduce the multidimensional LS formula for the derivatives to the 1-D type formula and make use of the advantages of 1-D type formula in multidimensions? Taking a closer look at the LS matrices, we observe that these are real and symmetric matrices with real eigenvalues and a real and distinct set of eigenvectors. The eigenvectors of these matrices are orthogonal. Along the eigendirections, the corresponding LS formulae reduce to the 1-D type formulae. But a problem now arises in combining the eigendirections along with upwinding. Upwinding, which in LS is done by stencil splitting, is essential to provide stability to the numerical scheme. It involves choosing a direction for enforcing upwinding. The stencil is split along the chosen direction. But it is not necessary that the chosen direction is along one of the eigendirections of the split stencil. Thus in general we will not be able to use the 1-D type formulae along the chosen direction. This difficulty has been overcome by the use of weights leading to WLSKUM-ED (Weighted Least Squares Kinetic Upwind Method using Eigendirections). In WLSKUM-ED weights are suitably chosen so that a chosen direction becomes an eigendirection of A(w). As a result, the multi-dimensional LS formulae reduce to 1-D type formulae along the eigendirections. All the advantages of the 1-D LS formuale can thus be made use of even in multi-dimensions. A very simple and novel way to calculate the positive weights, utilizing the coordinate differentials of the neighbouring nodes in the connectivity in 2-D and 3-D, has been developed for the purpose. This method is based on the fact that the summations of the coordinate differentials are of different signs (+ or -) in different quadrants or octants of the split stencil. It is shown that choice of suitable weights is equivalent to a suitable decomposition of vector space. The weights chosen either fully diagonalize the least squares matrix ie. decomposing the 3D vector space R3 as R3 = e1 + e2 + e3, where e1, e2and e3are the eigenvectors of A (w) or the weights make the chosen direction the eigendirection ie. decomposing the 3D vector space R3 as R3 = e1 + ( 2-D vector space R2). The positive weights not only prevent the denominator of the 1-D type LS formulae from going to zero, but also preserve the LED property of the least squares method. The WLSKUM-ED has been successfully applied to a large number of 2-D and 3-D test cases in various flow regimes for a variety of point distributions ranging from a simple cloud generated from a structured grid generator (shock reflection problem in 2-D and the supersonic flow past hemisphere in 3-D) to the multiple chimera clouds generated from multiple overlapping meshes (BI-NACA test case in 2-D and FAME cloud for M165 configuration in 3-D) thus demonstrating the robustness of the WLSKUM-ED solver. It must be noted that the second order acccurate computations using this method have been performed without the use of the limiters in all the flow regimes. No spurious oscillations and wiggles in the captured shocks have been observed, indicating the preservation of the LED property of the method even for 2ndorder accurate computations. The convergence acceleration of the WLSKUM-ED code has been achieved by the use of LUSGS method. The use of 1-D type formulae has simplified the application of LUSGS method in the grid-free framework. The advantage of the LUSGS method is that the evaluation and storage of the jacobian matrices can be eliminated by approximating the split flux jacobians in the implicit operator itself. Numerical results reveal the attainment of a speed up of four by using the LUSGS method as compared to the explicit time marching method. The 2-D WLSKUM-ED code has also been used to perform the internal flow computations. The internal flows are the flows which are confined within the boundaries. The inflow and the outflow boundaries have a significant effect on these flows. The accurate treatment of these boundary conditions is essential particularly if the flow condition at the outflow boundary is subsonic or transonic. The Kinetic Periodic Boundary Condition (KPBC) which has been developed to enable the single-passage (SP) flow computations to be performed in place of the multi-passage (MP) flow computations, utilizes the moment method strategy. The state update formula for the points at the periodic boundaries is identical to the state update formula for the interior points and can be easily extended to second order accuracy like the interior points. Numerical results have shown the successful reproduction of the MP flow computation results using the SP flow computations by the use of KPBC. The inflow and the outflow boundary conditions at the respective boundaries have been enforced by the use of Kinetic Outer Boundary Condition (KOBC). These boundary conditions have been validated by performing the flow computations for the 3rdtest case of the 4thstandard blade configuration of the turbine blade. The numerical results show a good comparison with the experimental results.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Os escoamentos altamente convectivos representam um desafio na simulação pelo método de elementos finitos. Com a solução de elementos finitos de Galerkin para escoamentos incompressíveis, a matriz associada ao termo convectivo é não simétrica, e portanto, a propiedade de aproximação ótima é perdida. Na prática as soluções apresentam oscilações espúrias. Muitos métodos foram desenvolvidos com o fim de resolver esse problema. Neste trabalho apresentamos um método semi- Lagrangeano, o qual é implicitamente um método do tipo upwind, que portanto resolve o problema anterior, e comparamos o desempenho do método na solução das equações de convecção-difusão e Navier-Stokes incompressível com o Streamline Upwind Petrov Galerkin (SUPG), um método estabilizador de reconhecido desempenho. No SUPG, as funções de forma e de teste são tomadas em espaços diferentes, criando um efeito tal que as oscilações espúrias são drasticamente atenuadas. O método semi-Lagrangeano é um método de fator de integração, no qual o fator é um operador de convecção que se desloca para um sistema de coordenadas móveis no fluido, mas restabelece o sistema de coordenadas Lagrangeanas depois de cada passo de tempo. Isto prevê estabilidade e a possibilidade de utilizar passos de tempo maiores.Existem muitos trabalhos na literatura analisando métodos estabilizadores, mas não assim com o método semi-Lagrangeano, o que representa a contribuição principal deste trabalho: reconhecer as virtudes e as fraquezas do método semi-Lagrangeano em escoamentos dominados pelo fenômeno de convecção. / Convection dominated flows represent a challenge for finite element method simulation. Many methods have been developed to address this problem. In this work we compare the performance of two methods in the solution of the convectiondiffusion and Navier-Stokes equations on environmental flow problems: the Streamline Upwind Petrov Galerkin (SUPG) and the semi-Lagrangian method. In Galerkin finite element methods for fluid flows, the matrix associated with the convective term is non-symmetric, and as a result, the best approximation property is lost. In practice, solutions are often corrupted by espurious oscillations. In this work, we present a semi- Lagrangian method, which is implicitly an upwind method, therefore solving the spurious oscillations problem, and a comparison between this semi-Lagrangian method and the Streamline Upwind Petrov Galerkin (SUPG), an stabilizing method of recognized performance. The SUPG method takes the interpolation and the weighting functions in different spaces, creating an effect so that the spurious oscillations are drastically attenuated. The semi-Lagrangean method is a integration factor method, in which the factor is an operator that shifts to a coordinate system that moves with the fluid, but it resets the Lagrangian coordinate system after each time step. This provides stability and the possibility to take bigger time steps. There are many works in the literature analyzing stabilized methods, but they do not analyze the semi-Lagrangian method, which represents the main contribution of this work: to recognize the strengths and weaknesses of the semi-Lagrangian method in convection dominated flows.