Fast multipole method applied to Lagrangian simulations of vortical flows

Abstract

Lagrangian simulations of unsteady vortical flows are accelerated by the multi-level fast multipole method, FMM. The combination of the FMM algorithm with a discrete vortex method, DVM, is discussed for free domain and periodic problems with focus on implementation details to reduce numerical dissipation and avoid spurious solutions in unsteady inviscid flows. An assessment of the FMM-DVM accuracy is presented through a comparison with the direct calculation of the Biot–Savart law for the simulation of the temporal evolution of an aircraft wake in the Trefftz plane. The role of several parameters such as time step restriction, truncation of the FMM series expansion, number of particles in the wake discretization and machine precision is investigated and we show how to avoid spurious instabilities. The FMM-DVM is also applied to compute the evolution of a temporal shear layer with periodic boundary conditions. A novel approach is proposed to achieve accurate solutions in the periodic FMM. This approach avoids a spurious precession of the periodic shear layer and solutions are shown to converge to the direct Biot–Savart calculation using a cotangent function.