Marc Massot

Rodney O. Fox, Frédérique Laurent, Marc Massot

The scope of the present study is Eulerian modeling and simulation of polydisperse liquid sprays undergoing droplet coalescence and evaporation. The fundamental mathematical description is the Williams spray equation governing the joint number density function f(v, u; x, t) of droplet volume and velocity. Eulerian multi-fluid models have already been rigorously derived from this equation in Laurent et al. (2004). The first key feature of the paper is the application of direct quadrature method of moments (DQMOM) introduced by Marchisio and Fox (2005) to the Williams spray equation. Both the multi-fluid method and DQMOM yield systems of Eulerian conservation equations with complicated interaction terms representing coalescence. In order to validate and compare these approaches, the chosen configuration is a self-similar 2D axisymmetrical decelerating nozzle with sprays having various size distributions, ranging from smooth ones up to Dirac delta functions. The second key feature of the paper is a thorough comparison of the two approaches for various test-cases to a reference solution obtained through a classical stochastic Lagrangian solver. Both Eulerian models prove to describe adequately spray coalescence and yield a very interesting alternative to the Lagrangian solver.

Max Duarte, Zdenek Bonaventura, Marc Massot et al.

This paper presents a new resolution strategy for multi-scale streamer discharge simulations based on a second order time adaptive integration and space adaptive multiresolution. A classical fluid model is used to describe plasma discharges, considering drift-diffusion equations and the computation of electric field. The proposed numerical method provides a time-space accuracy control of the solution, and thus, an effective accurate resolution independent of the fastest physical time scale. An important improvement of the computational efficiency is achieved whenever the required time steps go beyond standard stability constraints associated with mesh size or source time scales for the resolution of the drift-diffusion equations, whereas the stability constraint related to the dielectric relaxation time scale is respected but with a second order precision. Numerical illustrations show that the strategy can be efficiently applied to simulate the propagation of highly nonlinear ionizing waves as streamer discharges, as well as highly multi-scale nanosecond repetitively pulsed discharges, describing consistently a broad spectrum of space and time scales as well as different physical scenarios for consecutive discharge/post-discharge phases, out of reach of standard non-adaptive methods.

Christophe Chalons, Damien Kah, Marc Massot

Following the seminal work of F. Bouchut on zero pressure gas dynamics which has been extensively used for gas particle-flows, the present contribution investigates quadrature-based velocity moments models for kinetic equations in the framework of the infinite Knudsen number limit, that is, for dilute clouds of small particles where the collision or coalescence probability asymptotically approaches zero. Such models define a hierarchy based on the number of moments and associated quadrature nodes, the first level of which leads to pressureless gas dynamics. We focus in particular on the four moment model where the flux closure is provided by a two-node quadrature in the velocity phase space and provide the right framework for studying both smooth and singular solutions. The link with both the kinetic underlying equation as well as with zero pressure gas dynamics is provided and we define the notion of measure solutions as well as the mathematical structure of the resulting system of four PDEs. We exhibit a family of entropies and entropy fluxes and define the notion of entropic solution. We study the Riemann problem and provide a series of entropic solutions in particular cases. This leads to a rigorous link with the possibility of the system of macroscopic PDEs to allow particle trajectory crossing (PTC) in the framework of smooth solutions. Generalized $δ$-choc solutions resulting from Riemann problem are also investigated. Finally, using a kinetic scheme proposed in the literature without mathematical background in several areas, we validate such a numerical approach in the framework of both smooth and singular solutions.

Stéphane Descombes, Max Duarte, Thierry Dumont et al.

This paper introduces an adaptive time splitting technique for the solution of stiff evolutionary PDEs that guarantees an effective error control of the simulation, independent of the fastest physical time scale for highly unsteady problems. The strategy considers a second order Strang method and another lower order embedded splitting scheme that takes into account potential loss of order due to the stiffness featured by time-space multi-scale phenomena. The scheme is then built upon a precise numerical analysis of the method and a complementary numerical procedure, conceived to overcome classical restrictions of adaptive time stepping schemes based on lower order embedded methods, whenever asymptotic estimates fail to predict the dynamics of the problem. The performance of the method in terms of control of integration errors is evaluated by numerical simulations of stiff propagating waves coming from nonlinear chemical dynamics models as well as highly multi-scale nanosecond repetitively pulsed gas discharges, which allow to illustrate the method capabilities to consistently describe a broad spectrum of time scales and different physical scenarios for consecutive discharge/post-discharge phases.

Max Duarte, Zdenek Bonaventura, Marc Massot et al.

We develop a numerical strategy to solve multi-dimensional Poisson equations on dynamically adapted grids for evolutionary problems disclosing propagating fronts. The method is an extension of the multiresolution finite volume scheme used to solve hyperbolic and parabolic time-dependent PDEs. Such an approach guarantees a numerical solution of the Poisson equation within a user-defined accuracy tolerance. Most adaptive meshing approaches in the literature solve elliptic PDEs level-wise and hence at uniform resolution throughout the set of adapted grids. Here we introduce a numerical procedure to represent the elliptic operators on the adapted grid, strongly coupling inter grid relations that guarantee the conservation and accuracy properties of multiresolution finite volume schemes. The discrete Poisson equation is solved at once over the entire computational domain as a completely separate process. The accuracy and numerical performance of the method is assessed in the context of streamer discharge simulations.

Florence Drui, Alexandru Fikl, Pierre Kestener et al.

Many physical problems involve spatial and temporal inhomogeneities that require a very fine discretization in order to be accurately simulated. Using an adaptive mesh, a high level of resolution is used in the appropriate areas while keeping a coarse mesh elsewhere. This idea allows to save time and computations, but represents a challenge for distributed-memory environments. The MARS project (for Multiphase Adaptative Refinement Solver) intends to assess the parallel library p4est for adaptive mesh, in a case of a finite volume scheme applied to two-phase flows. Besides testing the library's performances, particularly for load balancing, its user-friendliness in use and implementation are also exhibited here. First promising 3D simulations are even presented.

Stéphane Descombes, Max Duarte, Thierry Dumont et al.

A new solver featuring time-space adaptation and error control has been recently introduced to tackle the numerical solution of stiff reaction-diffusion systems. Based on operator splitting, finite volume adaptive multiresolution and high order time integrators with specific stability properties for each operator, this strategy yields high computational efficiency for large multidimensional computations on standard architectures such as powerful workstations. However, the data structure of the original implementation, based on trees of pointers, provides limited opportunities for efficiency enhancements, while posing serious challenges in terms of parallel programming and load balancing. The present contribution proposes a new implementation of the whole set of numerical methods including Radau5 and ROCK4, relying on a fully different data structure together with the use of a specific library, TBB, for shared-memory, task-based parallelism with work-stealing. The performance of our implementation is assessed in a series of test-cases of increasing difficulty in two and three dimensions on multi-core and many-core architectures, demonstrating high scalability.

Mohamed Essadki, Stephane De Chaisemartin, Frédérique Laurent et al.

In this paper we propose a new Eulerian modeling and related accurate and robust numerical methods, describing polydisperse evaporating sprays, based on high order moment methods in size. The main novelty of this model is its capacity to describe some geometrical variables of the droplet-gas interface, by analogy with the liquid-gas interface in interfacial flows. For this purpose, we use fractional size-moments, where the size variable is taken as the droplet surface. In order to evaluate the evaporation of the polydisperse spray, we use a smooth reconstruction which maximizes the Shannon entropy. However, the use of fractional moments introduces some theoretical and numerical difficulties, which need to be tackled. First, relying on a study of the moment space, we extend the Maximum Entropy (ME) reconstruction of the size distribution to the case of fractional moments. Then, we propose a new accurate and realizable algorithm to solve the moment evolution due to evaporation, which preserves the structure of the moment space. This algorithm is based on a mathematical analysis of the kinetic evolution due to evaporation, where it shown that the evolution of some negative order fractional moments have to be properly predicted, a peculiarity related to the use of fractional moments. The present model and numerical schemes yield an accurate and stable evaluationof the moment dynamics with minimal number of variables, as well as a minimal computational cost as with the EMSM model, but with the very interesting additional capacity of coupling with diffuse interface model and transport equation of averaged geometrical interface variables, which are essential in oder to describe atomization.

Christophe Chalons, Frédérique Laurent, Marc Massot et al.

The present contribution introduces a fourth-order moment formalism for particle trajectory crossing (PTC) in the framework of multiscale modeling of disperse multiphase flow. In our previous work, the ability to treat PTC was examined with direct-numerical simulations (DNS) using either quadrature reconstruction based on a sum of Dirac delta functions denoted as Quadrature-Based Moment Methods (QBMM) in order to capture large scale trajectory crossing, or by using low order hydrodynamics closures in the Levermore hierarchy denoted as Kinetic-Based Moment Methods (KBMM) in order to capture small scale trajectory crossing. Whereas KBMM leads to well-posed PDEs and has a hard time capturing large scale trajectory crossing for particles with enough inertia, QBMM based on a discrete reconstruction suffers from singularity formation and requires too many moments in order to capture the effect of PTC at both small scale and large scale both to small-scale turbulence as well as free transport coupled to drag in an Eulerian mesoscale framework. The challenge addressed in this work is thus twofold: first, to propose a new generation of method at the interface between QBMM and KBMM with less singular behavior and the associated proper mathematical properties, which is able to capture both small scale and large scale trajectory crossing, and second to limit the number of moments used for applicability in 2-D and 3-D configurations without losing too much accuracy in the representation of spatial fluxes. In order to illustrate its numerical properties, the proposed Gaussian extended quadrature method of moments (Gaussian-EQMOM) is applied to solve 1-D and 2-D kinetic equations representing finite-Stokes-number particles in a known turbulent fluid flow.