Multiscale Simulation for the System of Radiation Hydrodynamics

Abstract

This paper aims at the simulation of multiple scale physics for the system of radiation hydrodynamics. The system couples the fluid dynamic equations with the radiative heat transfer. The coupled system is solved by the gas-kinetic scheme (GKS) for the compressible inviscid Euler flow and the unified gas-kinetic scheme (UGKS) for the non-equilibrium radiative transfer, together with the momentum and energy exchange between these two phases. For the radiative transfer, due to the possible large variation of fluid opacity in different regions, the transport of photons through the flow system is simulated by the multiscale UGKS, which is capable of naturally capturing the transport process from the photon’s free streaming to the diffusive wave propagation. Since both GKS and UGKS are finite volume methods, all unknowns are defined inside each control volume and are discretized consistently in the updates of hydrodynamic and radiative variables. For the coupled system, the scheme has the asymptotic preserving property, such as recovering the equilibrium diffusion limit for the radiation hydrodynamic system in the optically thick region, where the cell size is not limited by photon’s mean free path. A few test cases, such as radiative shock wave problems, are used to validate the current approach.