Nonlinear dynamics for the 3D ideal viscous gas flow over the cylinder

The system of governing equations for the dynamics of the compressible viscous ideal gas is considered in the 3D bounded domain with the inflow and outflow boundary conditions. The cylinder is located in the domain. Such problem is simulated using the high order WENO-scheme for inviscid part of the equations and using 4-th order central approximation for the viscous tensor part with the third order temporal discretization. The method of Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (POD) is applied to the problem at hand in order to extract the most active nodes. Cascades of bifurcations of periodic orbits and invariant tori are found that correspond to the excitation in different POD modes. The approximation of the reduced order model is analyzed and it is shown that one cannot make parameter extrapolations for the reduced order model to capture the same dynamics as is observed in the original full size model.

Modelling Settling-Driven Gravitational Instabilities at the Base of Volcanic Clouds Using the Lattice Boltzmann Method

Field observations and laboratory experiments have shown that ash sedimentation can be significantly affected by collective settling mechanisms that promote premature ash deposition, with important implications for dispersal and associated impacts. Among these mechanisms, settling-driven gravitational instabilities result from the formation of a gravitationally-unstable particle boundary layer (PBL) that grows between volcanic ash clouds and the underlying atmosphere. The PBL destabilises once it reaches a critical thickness characterised by a dimensionless Grashof number, triggering the formation of rapid, downward-moving ash fingers that remain poorly characterised. We simulate this process by coupling a Lattice Boltzmann model, which solves the Navier-Stokes equations for the fluid phase, with a Weighted Essentially Non Oscillatory (WENO) finite difference scheme which solves the advection-diffusion-settling equation describing particle transport. Since the physical problem is advection dominated, the use of the WENO scheme reduces numerical diffusivity and ensures accurate tracking of the temporal evolution of the interface between the layers. We have validated the new model by showing that the simulated early-time growth rate of the instability is in very good agreement with that predicted by linear stability analysis, whilst the modelled late-stage behaviour also successfully reproduces quantitative results from published laboratory experiments. The results show that the model is capable of reproducing both the growth of the unstable PBL and the non-linear dependence of the fingers’ vertical velocity on both the initial particle concentration and the particle diameter. Our validated model is used to expand the parameter space explored experimentally and provides key insights into field studies. Our simulations reveal that the critical Grashof number for the instability is about ten times larger than expected by analogy with thermal convection. Moreover, as in the experiments, we found that instabilities do not develop above a given particle threshold. Finally, we quantify the evolution of the mass of particles deposited at the base of the numerical domain and demonstrate that the accumulation rate increases with time, while it is expected to be constant if particles settle individually. This suggests that real-time measurements of sedimentation rate from volcanic clouds may be able to distinguish finger sedimentation from individual particle settling.

Towards Building the OP-Mapped WENO Schemes: A General Methodology

A serious and ubiquitous issue in existing mapped WENO schemes is that most of them can hardly preserve high resolutions, but in the meantime prevent spurious oscillations in the solving of hyperbolic conservation laws with long output times. Our goal for this article was to address this widely known problem. In our previous work, the order-preserving (OP) criterion was originally introduced and carefully used to devise a new mapped WENO scheme that performs satisfactorily in long simulations, and hence it was indicated that the OP criterion plays a critical role in the maintenance of low-dissipation and robustness for mapped WENO schemes. Thus, in our present work, we firstly defined the family of mapped WENO schemes, whose mappings meet the OP criterion, as OP-Mapped WENO. Next, we attentively took a closer look at the mappings of various existing mapped WENO schemes and devised a general formula for them. That helped us to extend the OP criterion to the design of improved mappings. Then, we created a generalized implementation of obtaining a group of OP-Mapped WENO schemes, named MOP-WENO-X, as they are developed from the existing mapped WENO-X schemes, where the notation “X” is used to identify the version of the existing mapped WENO scheme. Finally, extensive numerical experiments and comparisons with competing schemes were conducted to demonstrate the enhanced performances of the MOP-WENO-X schemes.