US 6,611,736 B1 · Equal order method for fluid flow simulation

Abstract

The present invention provides a method for solving the Navier-Stokes equation of viscous, incompressible laminar flows with moving free surfaces in complex domains. The method uses fixed mesh control volume-finite element techniques to track the flow. A gauss point velocity vector is defined as the average of its nodal counterpart, such that the gauss point velocity vector is constant over the element. The gauss point velocity vector is then inserted into the continuity constraint to form the Poisson pressure equation for solving the pressure field. The solution to the Poisson pressure equation is unique, the common checker-board problem is therefore eliminated. The corrected pressure field is substituted into the momentum equations, so that the resulting velocity field satisfies the continuity equation. Since velocity and pressure are evaluated at the same order, the global mass conservation can be evaluated to machine round-off tolerances.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A numerical method operating within a processor environment for solving the momentum equation in a computer simulation of a viscous, incompressible, laminar flow within a flow domain comprising:

(a) discretizing said flow domain into a mesh of elements having nodes and fluxing surfaces;
(b) forming momentum equations;
(c) computing nodal hat velocities at each said node;
(d) calculating gauss point hat velocities and gauss point coefficient, wherein said gauss point hat velocities and gauss point coefficient are average value of nodal hat velocities and nodal coefficient;
(e) updating velocity field;
(f) checking if velocity field has converged, and returning to said forming momentum equation if said velocity field has not converged.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Equal order method for fluid flow simulation

Life of this patent

Equal order method for fluid flow simulation

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims20