Unsteady incompressible flow over a backward-facing step using FEniCS

Abstract

This study demonstrates unsteady incompressible flow over a backward-facing step and a cylinder section using a finite element scheme for solving the unsteady Navier-Stokes equation called the incremental pressure correction scheme (IPCS). The speed and accuracy of the study were boosted by using an open-source framework. The formulation was done using the C++/Python-based computing platform called FEniCS. Gmsh is the mesh generator used to make the meshes. Krylov solvers, parallel processing, and higher-order function spaces of order above two are available in FEniCS and these enable faster and more accurate analyses. Most commercial software packages do not include these functionalities. The analysis of the backward-facing step was performed using legacy FEniCS. The DFG benchmark 2D-3 unsteady analysis in Featflow was conducted using FEniCSx. The pressure difference between the front and back of the cylinder and the drag and lift coefficients were calculated and compared to the benchmark. The graphs of these characteristics were plotted with respect to time along with their mean squared errors. The outcomes demonstrate how efficient the open-source FEM platform on display is at handling fluid flow simulations. Therefore, any turbulent incompressible flow may be simulated using the same open-source structure. [copyright information to be updated in the production process]