Computational Flow Analysis in Aerospace, Energy and Transportation Technologies with the Variational Multiscale Methods

Abstract

With the recent advances in the variational multiscale (VMS) methods, computational ow analysis in aerospace, energy, and transportation technologies has reached a high level of sophistication. It is bringing solutions in challenging problems such as the aerodynamics of parachutes, thermo-fluid analysis of ground vehicles and tires, and fluid-structure interaction (FSI) analysis of wind turbines. The computational challenges include complex geometries, moving boundaries and interfaces, FSI, turbulent flows, rotational flows, and large problem sizes. The Residual-Based VMS (RBVMS), Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian VMS (ALE-VMS) and Space-Time VMS (ST-VMS) methods have been successfully serving as core methods in addressing the computational challenges. The core methods are supplemented with special methods targeting specific classes of problems, such as the Slip Interface (SI) method, MultiDomain Method, and the ST-C data compression method. We provide and overview of the core and special methods. We present, as examples of challenging computations performed with these methods, aerodynamic analysis of a ramair parachute, thermo-fluid analysis of a freight truck and its rear set of tires, and aerodynamic and FSI analysis of two back-to-back wind turbines in atmospheric boundary layer flow.

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