A Unified Gas-Kinetic Scheme for Continuum and Rarefied Flows III: Microflow Simulations

AbstractDue to the rapid advances in micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS), the study of microflows becomes increasingly important. Currently, the molecular-based simulation techniques are the most reliable methods for rarefied flow computation, even though these methods face statistical scattering problem in the low speed limit. With discretized particle velocity space, a unified gas-kinetic scheme (UGKS) for entire Knudsen number flow has been constructed recently for flow computation. Contrary to the particle-based direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method, the unified scheme is a partial differential equation-based modeling method, where the statistical noise is totally removed. But, the common point between the DSMC and UGKS is that both methods are constructed through direct modeling in the discretized space. Due to the multiscale modeling in the unified method, i.e., the update of both macroscopic flow variables and microscopic gas distribution function, the conventional constraint of time step being less than the particle collision time in many direct Boltzmann solvers is released here. The numerical tests show that the unified scheme is more efficient than the particle-based methods in the low speed rarefied flow computation. The main purpose of the current study is to validate the accuracy of the unified scheme in the capturing of non-equilibrium flow phenomena. In the continuum and free molecular limits, the gas distribution function used in the unified scheme for the flux evaluation at a cell interface goes to the corresponding Navier-Stokes and free molecular solutions. In the transition regime, the DSMC solution will be used for the validation of UGKS results. This study shows that the unified scheme is indeed a reliable and accurate flow solver for low speed non-equilibrium flows. It not only recovers the DSMC results whenever available, but also provides high resolution results in cases where the DSMC can hardly afford the computational cost. In thermal creep flow simulation, surprising solution, such as the gas flowing from hot to cold regions along the wall surface, is observed for the first time by the unified scheme, which is confirmed later through intensive DSMC computation.

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GKS and UGKS for High-Speed Flows

Aerospace ◽

10.3390/aerospace8050141 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 8 (5) ◽

pp. 141

Author(s):

Yajun Zhu ◽

Chengwen Zhong ◽

Kun Xu

Keyword(s):

Distribution Function ◽

Knudsen Number ◽

Physical Modeling ◽

High Speed ◽

Kinetic Scheme ◽

Computational Techniques ◽

Time Step ◽

Rarefied Flow ◽

Flux Function ◽

Non Equilibrium

The gas-kinetic scheme (GKS) and the unified gas-kinetic scheme (UGKS) are numerical methods based on the gas-kinetic theory, which have been widely used in the numerical simulations of high-speed and non-equilibrium flows. Both methods employ a multiscale flux function constructed from the integral solutions of kinetic equations to describe the local evolution process of particles’ free transport and collision. The accumulating effect of particles’ collision during transport process within a time step is used in the construction of the schemes, and the intrinsic simulating flow physics in the schemes depends on the ratio of the particle collision time and the time step, i.e., the so-called cell’s Knudsen number. With the initial distribution function reconstructed from the Chapman–Enskog expansion, the GKS can recover the Navier–Stokes solutions in the continuum regime at a small Knudsen number, and gain multi-dimensional properties by taking into account both normal and tangential flow variations in the flux function. By employing a discrete velocity distribution function, the UGKS can capture highly non-equilibrium physics, and is capable of simulating continuum and rarefied flow in all Knudsen number regimes. For high-speed non-equilibrium flow simulation, the real gas effects should be considered, and the computational efficiency and robustness of the schemes are the great challenges. Therefore, many efforts have been made to improve the validity and reliability of the GKS and UGKS in both the physical modeling and numerical techniques. In this paper, we give a review of the development of the GKS and UGKS in the past decades, such as physical modeling of a diatomic gas with molecular rotation and vibration at high temperature, plasma physics, computational techniques including implicit and multigrid acceleration, memory reduction methods, and wave–particle adaptation.

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An Implicit Unified Gas Kinetic Scheme for Radiative Transfer with Equilibrium and Non-Equilibrium Diffusive Limits

Communications in Computational Physics ◽

10.4208/cicp.oa-2016-0261 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 22 (4) ◽

pp. 889-912 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

Wenjun Sun ◽

Song Jiang ◽

Kun Xu

Keyword(s):

Radiative Transfer ◽

Nonlinear Diffusion ◽

Kinetic Scheme ◽

Diffusion Limit ◽

Radiative Transport ◽

Time Step ◽

Equilibrium Limit ◽

Unified Gas Kinetic Scheme ◽

Material Temperature ◽

Non Equilibrium

AbstractThis paper is about the construction of a unified gas-kinetic scheme (UGKS) for a coupled system of radiative transport and material heat conduction with different diffusive limits. Different from the previous approach, instead of including absorption/emission only, the current method takes both scattering and absorption/emission mechanism into account in the radiative transport process. As a result, two asymptotic limiting solutions will appear in the diffusive regime. In the strong absorption/emission case, an equilibrium diffusion limit is obtained, where the system is mainly driven by a nonlinear diffusion equation for the equilibrium radiation and material temperature. However, in the strong scattering case, a non-equilibrium limit can be obtained, where coupled nonlinear diffusion system with different radiation and material temperature is obtained. In addition to including the scattering term in the transport equation, an implicit UGKS (IUGKS) will be developed in this paper as well. In the IUGKS, the numerical flux for the radiation intensity is constructed implicitly. Therefore, the conventional CFL constraint for the time step is released. With the use of a large time step for the radiative transport, it becomes possible to couple the IUGKS with the gas dynamic equations to develop an efficient numerical method for radiative hydrodynamics. The IUGKS is a valid method for all radiative transfer regimes. A few numerical examples will be presented to validate the current implicit method for both optical thin to optical thick cases.

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A Unified Gas-Kinetic Scheme for Continuum and Rarefied Flows II: Multi-Dimensional Cases

Communications in Computational Physics ◽

10.4208/cicp.030511.220911a ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 12 (3) ◽

pp. 662-690 ◽

Cited By ~ 97

Author(s):

Juan-Chen Huang ◽

Kun Xu ◽

Pubing Yu

Keyword(s):

Kinetic Equation ◽

Kinetic Scheme ◽

Current Method ◽

Flow Regimes ◽

Navier Stokes ◽

Rarefied Flow ◽

One Dimensional ◽

Flow Physics ◽

Unified Gas Kinetic Scheme ◽

Non Equilibrium

AbstractWith discretized particle velocity space, a multi-scale unified gas-kinetic scheme for entire Knudsen number flows has been constructed based on the kinetic model in one-dimensional case [J. Comput. Phys., vol. 229 (2010), pp. 7747-7764]. For the kinetic equation, to extend a one-dimensional scheme to multidimensional flow is not so straightforward. The major factor is that addition of one dimension in physical space causes the distribution function to become two-dimensional, rather than axially symmetric, in velocity space. In this paper, a unified gas-kinetic scheme based on the Shakhov model in two-dimensional space will be presented. Instead of particle-based modeling for the rarefied flow, such as the direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method, the philosophical principal underlying the current study is a partial-differential-equation (PDE)-based modeling. Since the valid scale of the kinetic equation and the scale of mesh size and time step may be significantly different, the gas evolution in a discretized space is modeled with the help of kinetic equation, instead of directly solving the partial differential equation. Due to the use of both hydrodynamic and kinetic scales flow physics in a gas evolution model at the cell interface, the unified scheme can basically present accurate solution in all flow regimes from the free molecule to the Navier-Stokes solutions. In comparison with the DSMC and Navier-Stokes flow solvers, the current method is much more efficient than DSMC in low speed transition and continuum flow regimes, and it has better capability than NS solver in capturing of non-equilibrium flow physics in the transition and rarefied flow regimes. As a result, the current method can be useful in the flow simulation where both continuum and rarefied flow physics needs to be resolved in a single computation. This paper will extensively evaluate the performance of the unified scheme from free molecule to continuum NS solutions, and from low speed micro-flow to high speed non-equilibrium aerodynamics. The test cases clearly demonstrate that the unified scheme is a reliable method for the rarefied flow computations, and the scheme provides an important tool in the study of non-equilibrium flow.

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