Code Verification of the HIGRAD Computational Fluid Dynamics Solver
- Los Alamos National Laboratory
The purpose of this report is to outline code and solution verification activities applied to HIGRAD, a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) solver of the compressible Navier-Stokes equations developed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and used to simulate various phenomena such as the propagation of wildfires and atmospheric hydrodynamics. Code verification efforts, as described in this report, are an important first step to establish the credibility of numerical simulations. They provide evidence that the mathematical formulation is properly implemented without significant mistakes that would adversely impact the application of interest. Highly accurate analytical solutions are derived for four code verification test problems that exercise different aspects of the code. These test problems are referred to as: (i) the quiet start, (ii) the passive advection, (iii) the passive diffusion, and (iv) the piston-like problem. These problems are simulated using HIGRAD with different levels of mesh discretization and the numerical solutions are compared to their analytical counterparts. In addition, the rates of convergence are estimated to verify the numerical performance of the solver. The first three test problems produce numerical approximations as expected. The fourth test problem (piston-like) indicates the extent to which the code is able to simulate a 'mild' discontinuity, which is a condition that would typically be better handled by a Lagrangian formulation. The current investigation concludes that the numerical implementation of the solver performs as expected. The quality of solutions is sufficient to provide credible simulations of fluid flows around wind turbines. The main caveat associated to these findings is the low coverage provided by these four problems, and somewhat limited verification activities. A more comprehensive evaluation of HIGRAD may be beneficial for future studies.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC52-06NA25396
- OSTI ID:
- 1040022
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR-12-21165; TRN: US201211%%96
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
97 MATHEMATICAL METHODS AND COMPUTING
ADVECTION
ANALYTICAL SOLUTION
APPROXIMATIONS
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
CONVERGENCE
DIFFUSION
EVALUATION
FLUID FLOW
FLUID MECHANICS
HYDRODYNAMICS
IMPLEMENTATION
LAGRANGIAN FUNCTION
LANL
NAVIER-STOKES EQUATIONS
NUMERICAL SOLUTION
PERFORMANCE
VERIFICATION
WIND TURBINES