Skip to main content
Article
Direct immersogeometric fluid flow analysis using B-rep CAD models
Computer Aided Geometric Design
  • Ming-Chen Hsu, Iowa State University
  • Chenglong Wang, Iowa State University
  • Fei Xu, Iowa State University
  • Austin J. Herrema, Iowa State University
  • Adarsh Krishnamurthy, Iowa State University
Document Type
Article
Publication Version
Accepted Manuscript
Publication Date
3-1-2016
DOI
10.1016/j.cagd.2016.02.007
Abstract

We present a new method for immersogeometric fluid flow analysis that directly uses the CAD boundary representation (B-rep) of a complex object and immerses it into a locally refined, non-boundary-fitted discretization of the fluid domain. The motivating applications include analyzing the flow over complex geometries, such as moving vehicles, where the detailed geometric features usually require time-consuming, labor-intensive geometry cleanup or mesh manipulation for generating the surrounding boundary-fitted fluid mesh. The proposed method avoids the challenges associated with such procedures. A new method to perform point membership classification of the background mesh quadrature points is also proposed. To faithfully capture the geometry in intersected elements, we implement an adaptive quadrature rule based on the recursive splitting of elements. Dirichlet boundary conditions in intersected elements are enforced weakly in the sense of Nitsche's method. To assess the accuracy of the proposed method, we perform computations of the benchmark problem of flow over a sphere represented using B-rep. Quantities of interest such as drag coefficient are in good agreement with reference values reported in the literature. The results show that the density and distribution of the surface quadrature points are crucial for the weak enforcement of Dirichlet boundary conditions and for obtaining accurate flow solutions. Also, with sufficient levels of surface quadrature element refinement, the quadrature error near the trim curves becomes insignificant. Finally, we demonstrate the effectiveness of our immersogeometric method for high-fidelity industrial scale simulations by performing an aerodynamic analysis of an agricultural tractor directly represented using B-rep.

Comments

This is a manuscript of an article published as Hsu, Ming-Chen, Chenglong Wang, Fei Xu, Austin J. Herrema, and Adarsh Krishnamurthy. "Direct immersogeometric fluid flow analysis using B-rep CAD models." Computer Aided Geometric Design 43 (2016): 143-158. doi: 10.1016/j.cagd.2016.02.007. Copyright 2016 Elsevier B.V.Posted with permission.

Creative Commons License
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International
Copyright Owner
Elsevier B.V.
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Citation Information
Ming-Chen Hsu, Chenglong Wang, Fei Xu, Austin J. Herrema, et al.. "Direct immersogeometric fluid flow analysis using B-rep CAD models" Computer Aided Geometric Design Vol. 43 (2016) p. 143 - 158
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/ming-chen_hsu/20/