Evaluation of a Parallel Agglomeration Multigrid Finite-Volume Algorithm, Named Galatea-I, for the Simulation of Incompressible Flows on 3D Hybrid Unstructured Grids

Abstract

In this study an academic Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code, named Galatea-I, is described, which employs the Reynolds Averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) equations along with the artificial compressibility method and the SST (Shear Stress Transport) turbulence model for the prediction of incompressible viscous flows. For the representation of the computational domain unstructured hybrid grids are utilized, composed of tetrahedral, prismatic and pyramidical elements, while for its discretization a node-centered finite-volume scheme is implemented. Galatea-I is enhanced with a parallelization method, which employs spatial domain decomposition, while the data exchange between processors/processes is performed with the use of the Message Passing Interface (MPI) protocol. In addition, a parallel agglomeration multigrid methodology has been incorporated to improve further its computational performance. The proposed code is validated against steady-state flow benchmark test cases, concerning laminar flow over a cubic cavity and a cylindrical surface, as well as turbulent flow over a rectangular wing with a NACA0012 airfoil. The obtained results, compared with these of corresponding reference solvers, reveal Galatea-I’s potential for simulation of inviscid, viscous laminar and turbulent incompressible flows.