A new cut-cell algorithm for DSMC simulations of rarefied gas flows around immersed moving objects

A new cut-cell algorithm for DSMC simulations of rarefied gas flows around immersed moving objects

Jin, W. (TU Delft ChemE/Product and Process Engineering)
van Ommen, J.R. (TU Delft ChemE/Product and Process Engineering)
Kleijn, C.R. (TU Delft ChemE/Transport Phenomena)

2016

Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) is a widely applied numerical technique to simulate rarefied gas flows. For flows around immersed moving objects, the use of body fitted meshes is inefficient, whereas published methods using cut-cells in a fixed background mesh have important limitations. We present a novel cut-cell algorithm, which allows for accurate DSMC simulations around arbitrarily shaped moving objects. The molecule–surface interaction occurs exactly at the instantaneous collision point on the moving body surface, and accounts for its instantaneous velocity, thus precisely imposing the desired boundary conditions. A simple algorithm to calculate the effective volume of cut cells is presented and
shown to converge linearly with grid refinement. The potential and efficiency of method is demonstrated by calculating rarefied gas flow drag forces on steady and moving immersed spheres. The obtained results are in excellent agreement with results obtained with a body-fitted mesh, and with analytical approximations for high-Knudsen number flows.

DSMC
Cut-cell
Overlap volume
Drag

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:a9416799-0134-4063-924b-295952e489ad

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpc.2016.10.023

2018-11-09

0010-4655

Computer Physics Communications, 212, 146-151

Institutional Repository

journal article

© 2016 W. Jin, J.R. van Ommen, C.R. Kleijn