A front tracking method capturing field features accurately for one-dimensional flows

Abstract

Capturing all flow field features sharply and accurately, including contact interfaces, shocks, and rarefaction heads and tails, is still a challenging task in computational fluid dynamics. Conventional front capturing methods often suffer from spurious oscillations and non-physical front blurring. Moreover, positions of interfaces and shock waves are very difficult to capture correctly when there are strong rarefaction waves. To overcome these difficulties, a new front tracking method for one-dimensional flows is proposed in this work, in which all the wave fronts, including interfaces, shocks, and rarefaction heads and tails, are tracked by nodes explicitly. Numerical results show that it can track fronts accurately and sharply without front smearing, spurious oscillations near fronts, or wall overheating for one-dimensional flows, even for problems with strong rarefaction waves.