Search results for "Finite volume method"
showing 10 items of 97 documents
A generalized finite difference method using Coatmèlec lattices
2009
Generalized finite difference methods require that a properly posed set of nodes exists around each node in the mesh, so that the solution for the corresponding multivariate interpolation problem be unique. In this paper we first show that the construction of these meshes can be computerized using a relatively simple algorithm based on the concept of a Coatmelec lattice. Then, we present a generalized finite difference method which provides a numerical solution of a partial differential equation over an arbitrary domain, using the generated meshes. The accuracy and mesh adaptivity of the method is evaluated using elliptical equations in several domains.
An adaptive rectangular mesh administration and refinement technique with application in cancer invasion models
2022
We present an administration technique for the bookkeeping of adaptive mesh refinement on (hyper-)rectangular meshes. Our technique is a unified approach for h-refinement on 1-, 2- and 3D domains, which is easy to use and avoids traversing the connectivity graph of the ancestry of mesh cells. Due to the employed rectangular mesh structure, the identification of the siblings and the neighbouring cells is greatly simplified. The administration technique is particularly designed for smooth meshes, where the smoothness is dynamically used in the matrix operations. It has a small memory footprint that makes it affordable for a wide range of mesh resolutions over a large class of problems. We pre…
Numerical simulation of the transient thermal-hydraulic behaviour of the ITER blanket cooling system under the draining operational procedure
2015
Abstract Within the framework of the research and development activities supported by the ITER Organization on the blanket system issues, an intense analysis campaign has been performed at the University of Palermo with the aim to investigate the thermal-hydraulic behaviour of the cooling system of a standard 20° sector of ITER blanket during the draining transient operational procedure. The analysis has been carried out following a theoretical-computational approach based on the finite volume method and adopting the RELAP5 system code. In a first phase, attention has been focused on the development and validation of the finite volume models of the cooling circuits of the most demanding mod…
Analysis of steady state thermal-hydraulic behaviour of the DEMO Divertor cassette body cooling circuit
2017
Abstract Within the framework of the Work Package DIV 1 – “Divertor Cassette Design and Integration” of the EUROfusion action, a research campaign has been jointly carried out by ENEA and University of Palermo to investigate the thermal-hydraulic performances of the DEMO divertor cassette cooling system. A comparative evaluation study has been performed considering the two different options under consideration for the divertor cassette body coolant, namely subcooled pressurized water and helium. The research activity has been carried out following a theoretical-computational approach based on the finite volume method and adopting a qualified Computational Fluid-Dynamic (CFD) code. CFD analy…
Convergence of the finite volume method for a conductive-radiative heat transfer problem
2013
We show that the finite volume method rigorously converges to the solution of a conductive-radiative heat transfer problem with nonlocal and nonlinear boundary conditions. To get this result, we start by proving existence of solutions for a finite volume discretization of the original problem. Then, by obtaining uniform boundedness of discrete solutions and their discrete gradients with respect to mesh size, we finally get L 2type convergence of discrete solutions.
Investigation of flow and heat transfer in corrugated passages—II. Numerical simulations
1996
An experimental and numerical study of flow and heat transfer was conducted for a crossed-corrugated geometry, representative of compact heat exchangers under transitional and weakly turbulent conditions. Three-dimensional numerical predictions were obtained by a finite volume method using a variety of approaches ranging from laminar flow assumptions to standard and low-Reynolds number k-e turbulence models, direct simulation, and large-eddy simulation. In this paper, the various computational approaches are presented and their relative performance is discussed for various geometries and Reynolds numbers; results are compared with experimental measurements and literature data. Detailed expe…
A study of turbulent heat transfer in curved pipes by numerical simulation
2013
Abstract Turbulent heat transfer in curved pipes was studied by numerical simulation. Two curvatures δ (pipe radius a/curvature radius c) were considered, 0.1 and 0.3; results were also obtained for a straight pipe (δ = 0) for comparison purposes. A tract of pipe 5 diameters in length was chosen as the computational domain and was discretized by finite volume multiblock-structured grids of ∼5.3 × 106 hexahedral cells. Fully developed conditions were assumed; the friction velocity Reynolds number was 500, corresponding to bulk Reynolds numbers between 12 630 and ∼17 350 according to the curvature, while the Prandtl number was 0.86 (representative of saturated liquid water at 58 bar). Simulat…
Vacuum local and global electromagnetic self-energies for a point-like and an extended field source
2013
We consider the electric and magnetic energy densities (or equivalently field fluctuations) in the space around a point-like field source in its ground state, after having subtracted the spatially uniform zero-point energy terms, and discuss the problem of their singular behavior at the source's position. We show that the assumption of a point-like source leads, for a simple Hamiltonian model of the interaction of the source with the electromagnetic radiation field, to a divergence of the renormalized electric and magnetic energy density at the position of the source. We analyze in detail the mathematical structure of such singularity in terms of a delta function and its derivatives. We als…
Some diffusion equations with finite propagation speed
2007
We summarize some of our recent results on diffusion equations with finite speed of propagation. These equations have been introduced to correct the infinite speed of propagation predicted by the classical linear diffusion theory. (© 2008 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)
Finite-size effects on liquid-solid phase coexistence and the estimation of crystal nucleation barriers.
2015
A fluid in equilibrium in a finite volume $V$ with particle number $N$ at a density $\rho = N/V$ exceeding the onset density $\rho_f $ of freezing may exhibit phase coexistence between a crystalline nucleus and surrounding fluid. Using a method suitable for the estimation of the chemical potential of dense fluids we obtain the excess free energy due to the surface of the crystalline nucleus. There is neither a need to precisely locate the interface nor to compute the (anisotropic) interfacial tension. As a test case, a soft version of the Asakura-Oosawa model for colloid polymer-mixtures is treated. While our analysis is appropriate for crystal nuclei of arbitrary shape, we find the nucleat…