Discrete Delta Functions Research Articles

On convergence of the immersed boundary method for elliptic interface problems

Peskin’s Immersed Boundary (IB) method is one of the most popular numerical methods for many years and has been applied to problems in mathematical biology, uid mechanics, material sciences, and many other areas. Peskin’s IB method is associated with discrete delta functions. It is believed that the IB method is rst order accurate in the L 1 norm. But almost no rigorous proof could be found in the literature until recently [14] in which the author showed that the velocity is indeed rst order accurate for the Stokes equations with a periodic boundary condition. In this paper, we show rst order convergence with a log h factor of the IB method for elliptic interface problems essentially without the boundary condition restrictions. The results should be applicable to the IB method for many dieren t situations involving elliptic solvers for Stokes and Navier-Stokes equations.

An adaptive immersed boundary-lattice Boltzmann method for simulating a flapping foil in ground effect

An adaptive immersed boundary-lattice Boltzmann method (IB-LBM) for simulating two-dimensional moving boundary problems is presented in this work. On one hand, to accurately and efficiently simulate flow field, our recently developed solution-adaptive LBM (Wu and Shu, 2011) is employed. On the other hand, a smoothed discrete delta function (Yang et al., 2009) is utilized to suppress the non-physical force oscillations produced by IBM when dealing with the moving boundary problems. After simulating some validation cases including flows over a transversely oscillating circular cylinder and insect hovering flight in ground effect, the current method is employed to numerically investigate the ground effect on the performance of a flapping foil. In this study, the ground is represented by a flat or wavy plate. Due to the existence of the ground, the performance of the flapping foil is greatly changed. Higher lift force or power extraction efficiency can be achieved.

Numerical Study of Stability and Accuracy of the Immersed Boundary Method Coupled to the Lattice Boltzmann BGK Model

AbstractThis paper aims to study the numerical features of a coupling scheme between the immersed boundary (IB) method and the lattice Boltzmann BGK (LBGK) model by four typical test problems: the relaxation of a circular membrane, the shearing flow induced by a moving fiber in the middle of a channel, the shearing flow near a non-slip rigid wall, and the circular Couette flow between two inversely rotating cylinders. The accuracy and robustness of the IB-LBGK coupling scheme, the performances of different discrete Dirac delta functions, the effect of iteration on the coupling scheme, the importance of the external forcing term treatment, the sensitivity of the coupling scheme to flow and boundary parameters, the velocity slip near non-slip rigid wall, and the origination of numerical instabilities are investigated in detail via the four test cases. It is found that the iteration in the coupling cycle can effectively improve stability, the introduction of a second-order forcing term in LBGK model is crucial, the discrete fiber segment length and the orientation of the fiber boundary obviously affect accuracy and stability, and the emergence of both temporal and spatial fluctuations of boundary parameters seems to be the indication of numerical instability. These elaborate results shed light on the nature of the coupling scheme and may benefit those who wish to use or improve the method.

A Sharp Interface Direct Forcing Immersed Boundary Approach for Fully Resolved Simulations of Particulate Flows

In recent years, the immersed boundary method has been well received as an effective approach for the fully resolved simulations of particulate flows. Most immersed boundary approaches for numerical studies of particulate flows in the literature were based on various discrete delta functions for information transfer between the Lagrangian elements of an immersed object and the underlying Eulerian grid. These approaches have some inherent limitations that restrict their wider applications. In this paper, a sharp interface direct forcing immersed boundary approach based on the method proposed by Yang and Stern (Yang and Stern, 2012, “A Simple and Efficient Direct Forcing Immersed Boundary Framework for Fluid-Structure Interactions,” J. Comput. Phys., 231(15), pp. 5029–5061) is given for the fully resolved simulations of particulate flows. This method uses a discrete forcing approach and maintains a sharp profile of the fluid-solid interface. It is not limited to low Reynolds number flows and the immersed boundary discretization can be arbitrary or totally eliminated for particles with analytical shapes. In addition, it is not required to calculate the solid volume fraction in low density ratio problems. A strong coupling scheme is employed for the fluid-solid interaction without including the fluid solver in the predictor-corrector iterative loop. The overall algorithm is highly efficient and very attractive for simulating particulate flows with a wide range of density ratios on relatively coarse grids. Several cases are examined and the results are compared with reference data to demonstrate the simplicity and robustness of our method in particulate flow simulations. These cases include settling and buoyant particles and the interaction of two settling particles showing the kissing-drafting-tumbling phenomenon. Systematic verification studies show that our method is of second-order accuracy on very coarse grids and approaches fourth-order accuracy on finer grids.

A direct forcing immersed boundary method employed with compact integrated RBF approximations for heat transfer and fluid flow problems

In this paper, we present a numerical scheme, based on the direct forcing immersed boundary (DFIB) approach and compact integrated radial basis function (CIRBF) approximations, for solving the Navier-Stokes equations in two dimensions. The problem domain of complicated shape is embedded in a Cartesian grid containing Eulerian nodes. Non-slip conditions on the inner boundaries, represented by Lagrangian nodes, are imposed by means of the DFIB method, in which a smoothed version of the discrete delta functions is utilised to transfer the physical quantities between two types of nodes. The velocities and pressure variables are approximated locally on Eulerian nodes using 3-node CIRBF stencils, where first- and second-order derivative values of the field variables are also included in the RBF approximations. The present DFIB-CIRBF scheme is verified through the solution of several test problems including Taylor-Green vortices, rotational flow, lid-driven cavity flow with multiple solid bodies, flow between rotating circular and fixed square cylinders, and natural convection in an eccentric annulus between two circular cylinders. Numerical results obtained using relatively coarse grids are in good agreement with available data in the literature.

Taylor Series Expansion in Discrete Clifford Analysis

Discrete Clifford analysis is a discrete higher-dimensional function theory which corresponds simultaneously to a refinement of discrete harmonic analysis and to a discrete counterpart of Euclidean Clifford analysis. The discrete framework is based on a discrete Dirac operator that combines both forward and backward difference operators and on the splitting of the basis elements \(\mathbf{e}_j = \mathbf{e}_j^+ + \mathbf{e}_j^-\) into forward and backward basis elements \(\mathbf{e}_j^\pm \). For a systematic development of this function theory, an indispensable tool is the Taylor series expansion, which decomposes a discrete (monogenic) function in terms of discrete homogeneous (monogenic) building blocks. The latter are the so-called discrete Fueter polynomials. For a discrete function, the authors assumed a series expansion which is formally equivalent to the Taylor series expansion in Euclidean Clifford analysis; however, attention needed to be paid to the geometrical conditions on the domain of the function, the convergence and the equivalence to the given discrete function. We furthermore applied the theory to discrete delta functions and investigated the connection with Shannon sampling theorem (Bell Sys Tech J 27:379–423, 1948). We found that any discrete function admits a series expansion into discrete homogeneous polynomials and any discrete monogenic function admits a Taylor series expansion in terms of the discrete Fueter polynomials, i.e. discrete homogeneous monogenic polynomials. Although formally the discrete Taylor series expansion of a function resembles the continuous Taylor series expansion, the main difference is that there is no restriction on discrete functions to be represented as infinite series of discrete homogeneous polynomials. Finally, since the continuous expansion of the Taylor series expansion of discrete delta functions is a sinc function, the discrete Taylor series expansion lays a link with Shannon sampling.

An immersed boundary computational model for acoustic scattering problems with complex geometries

An immersed boundary computational model is presented in order to deal with the acoustic scattering problem by complex geometries, in which the wall boundary condition is treated as a direct body force determined by satisfying the non-penetrating boundary condition. Two distinct discretized grids are used to discrete the fluid domain and immersed boundary, respectively. The immersed boundaries are represented by Lagrangian points and the direct body force determined on these points is applied on the neighboring Eulerian points. The coupling between the Lagrangian points and Euler points is linked by a discrete delta function. The linearized Euler equations are spatially discretized with a fourth-order dispersion-relation-preserving scheme and temporal integrated with a low-dissipation and low-dispersion Runge-Kutta scheme. A perfectly matched layer technique is applied to absorb out-going waves and in-going waves in the immersed bodies. Several benchmark problems for computational aeroacoustic solvers are performed to validate the present method.

Discrete Clifford analysis: the one-dimensional setting

In a higher dimensional setting, there are two major theories generalizing the theory of holomorphic functions in the complex plane, namely the theory of several complex variables and Clifford analysis. Discrete Clifford analysis is a discrete counterpart of the latter, studying the null functions of a discrete Dirac operator, which are called discrete monogenic functions. In this contribution, we give several new results in the one-dimensional case. We focus on the basic building blocks of discrete functions, namely discrete delta functions δ j , in relation to the discrete vector variable operator ξ. We introduce discrete distribution theory, in particular discrete delta distributions δ j and define a Fourier transform for discrete distributions. Finally, a comparison is made between discrete delta functions and distributions.

Scattering from a discrete quasi-Hermitian delta function potential

Scattering from a discrete quasi-Hermitian delta function potential is studied and the metric operator is found. A generalized continuity relation in the physical Hilbert space is derived and the probability current density is defined. The reflection and transmission coefficients computed with this current are shown to obey the unitarity relation .

A Fractional Step Immersed Boundary Method for Stokes Flow with an Inextensible Interface Enclosing a Solid Particle

In this paper, we develop a fractional step method based on the immersed boundary (IB) formulation for Stokes flow with an inextensible (incompressible) interface enclosing a solid particle. In addition to solving for the fluid variables such as the velocity and pressure, the present problem involves finding an extra unknown elastic tension such that the surface divergence of the velocity is zero along the interface, and an extra unknown particle surface force such that the velocity satisfies the no-slip boundary condition along the particle surface. While the interface moves with local fluid velocity, the enclosed particle hereby undergoes a rigid body motion, and the system is closed by the force-free and torque-free conditions along the particle surface. The equations are then discretized by standard centered difference schemes on a staggered grid, and the interactions between the interface and particle with the fluid are discretized using a discrete delta function as in the IB method. The resultant linear system of equations is symmetric and can be solved by fractional steps so that only fast Poisson solvers are involved. The present method can be extended to Navier--Stokes flow with moderate Reynolds number by treating the nonlinear advection terms explicitly for the time integration. The convergent tests for a Stokes solver with or without an inextensible interface are performed and confirm the desired accuracy. The tank-treading to tumbling motion for an inextensible interface enclosing a solid particle with different filling fractions under a simple shear flow has been studied extensively, and the results here are in good agreement with those obtained in literature. (A corrected version is attached.)

Properties of Discrete Delta Functions and Local Convergence of the Immersed Boundary Method

Many problems involving internal interfaces can be formulated as partial differential equations with singular source terms. Numerical approximation to such problems on a regular grid necessitates suitable regularizations of delta functions. We study the convergence properties of such discretizations for constant coefficient elliptic problems using the immersed boundary method as an example. We show how the order of the differential operator, order of the finite difference discretization, and properties of the discrete delta function all influence the local convergence behavior. In particular, we show how a recently introduced property of discrete delta functions---the smoothing order---is important in the determination of local convergence rates.

Volume preserving immersed boundary methods for two‐phase fluid flows

SUMMARYIn this article, we propose a simple area‐preserving correction scheme for two‐phase immiscible incompressible flows with an immersed boundary method (IBM). The IBM was originally developed to model blood flow in the heart and has been widely applied to biofluid dynamics problems with complex geometries and immersed elastic membranes. The main idea of the IBM is to use a regular Eulerian computational grid for the fluid mechanics along with a Lagrangian representation of the immersed boundary. Using the discrete Dirac delta function and the indicator function, we can include the surface tension force, variable viscosity and mass density, and gravitational force effects. The principal advantage of the IBM for two‐phase fluid flows is its inherent accuracy due in part to its ability to use a large number of interfacial marker points on the interface. However, because the interface between two fluids is moved in a discrete manner, this can result in a lack of volume conservation. The idea of an area preserving correction scheme is to correct the interface location normally to the interface so that the area remains constant. Various numerical experiments are presented to illustrate the efficiency and accuracy of the proposed conservative IBM for two‐phase fluid flows. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A comparative study of direct‐forcing immersed boundary‐lattice Boltzmann methods for stationary complex boundaries

AbstractIn this study, we assess several interface schemes for stationary complex boundary flows under the direct‐forcing immersed boundary‐lattice Boltzmann methods (IB‐LBM) based on a split‐forcing lattice Boltzmann equation (LBE). Our strategy is to couple various interface schemes, which were adopted in the previous direct‐forcing immersed boundary methods (IBM), with the split‐forcing LBE, which enables us to directly use the direct‐forcing concept in the lattice Boltzmann calculation algorithm with a second‐order accuracy without involving the Navier–Stokes equation. In this study, we investigate not only common diffuse interface schemes but also a sharp interface scheme. For the diffuse interface scheme, we consider explicit and implicit interface schemes. In the calculation of velocity interpolation and force distribution, we use the 2‐ and 4‐point discrete delta functions, which give the second‐order approximation. For the sharp interface scheme, we deal with the exterior sharp interface scheme, where we impose the force density on exterior (solid) nodes nearest to the boundary. All tested schemes show a second‐order overall accuracy when the simulation results of the Taylor–Green decaying vortex are compared with the analytical solutions. It is also confirmed that for stationary complex boundary flows, the sharper the interface scheme, the more accurate the results are. In the simulation of flows past a circular cylinder, the results from each interface scheme are comparable to those from other corresponding numerical schemes. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A direct-forcing immersed boundary method for the thermal lattice Boltzmann method

In this study, a direct-forcing immersed boundary method (IBM) for thermal lattice Boltzmann method (TLBM) is proposed to simulate the non-isothermal flows. The direct-forcing IBM formulas for thermal equations are derived based on two TLBM models: a double-population model with a simplified thermal lattice Boltzmann equation (Model 1) and a hybrid model with an advection–diffusion equation of temperature (Model 2). As an interface scheme, which is required due to a mismatch between boundary and computational grids in the IBM, the sharp interface scheme based on second-order bilinear and linear interpolations (instead of the diffuse interface scheme, which uses discrete delta functions) is adopted to obtain the more accurate results. The proposed methods are validated through convective heat transfer problems with not only stationary but also moving boundaries – the natural convection in a square cavity with an eccentrically located cylinder and a cold particle sedimentation in an infinite channel. In terms of accuracy, the results from the IBM based on both models are comparable and show a good agreement with those from other numerical methods. In contrast, the IBM based on Model 2 is more numerically efficient than the IBM based on Model 1.

The Cauchy-Kovalevskaya extension theorem in discrete Clifford analysis

Discrete Clifford analysis is a higher dimensional discrete function theory based on skew Weyl relations. It is centered around the study of Clifford algebra valued null solutions, called discrete monogenic functions, of a discrete Dirac operator, i.e. a first order, Clifford vector valued difference operator. In this paper, we establish a Cauchy-Kovalevskaya extension theorem for discrete monogenic functions defined on the standard $Z^m$ grid. Based on this extension principle, discrete Fueter polynomials, forming a basis of the space of discrete spherical monogenics, i.e. homogeneous discrete monogenic polynomials, are introduced. As an illustrative example we moreover explicitly construct the Cauchy-Kovalevskaya extension of the discrete delta function. These results are then generalized for a grid with variable mesh width $h$.

Large-eddy simulation of flows past a flapping airfoil using immersed boundary method

The numerical simulation of flows past flapping foils at moderate Reynolds numbers presents two challenges to computational fluid dynamics: turbulent flows and moving boundaries. The direct forcing immersed boundary (IB) method has been developed to simulate laminar flows. However, its performance in simulating turbulent flows and transitional flows with moving boundaries has not been fully evaluated. In the present work, we use the IB method to simulate fully developed turbulent channel flows and transitional flows past a stationary/plunging SD7003 airfoil. To suppress the non-physical force oscillations in the plunging case, we use the smoothed discrete delta function for interpolation in the IB method. The results of the present work demonstrate that the IB method can be used to simulate turbulent flows and transitional flows with moving boundaries.

Efficient and accurate simulations of deformable particles immersed in a fluid using a combined immersed boundary lattice Boltzmann finite element method

The deformation of an initially spherical capsule, freely suspended in simple shear flow, can be computed analytically in the limit of small deformations [D. Barthés-Biesel, J.M. Rallison, The time-dependent deformation of a capsule freely suspended in a linear shear flow, J. Fluid Mech. 113 (1981) 251–267]. Those analytic approximations are used to study the influence of the mesh tessellation method, the spatial resolution, and the discrete delta function of the immersed boundary method on the numerical results obtained by a coupled immersed boundary lattice Boltzmann finite element method. For the description of the capsule membrane, a finite element method and the Skalak constitutive model [R. Skalak, A. Tozeren, R.P. Zarda, S. Chien, Strain energy function of red blood cell membranes, Biophys. J. 13 (1973) 245–264] have been employed. Our primary goal is the investigation of the presented model for small resolutions to provide a sound basis for efficient but accurate simulations of multiple deformable particles immersed in a fluid. We come to the conclusion that details of the membrane mesh, as tessellation method and resolution, play only a minor role. The hydrodynamic resolution, i.e., the width of the discrete delta function, can significantly influence the accuracy of the simulations. The discretization of the delta function introduces an artificial length scale, which effectively changes the radius and the deformability of the capsule. We discuss possibilities of reducing the computing time of simulations of deformable objects immersed in a fluid while maintaining high accuracy.

A smoothing technique for discrete delta functions with application to immersed boundary method in moving boundary simulations

The effects of complex boundary conditions on flows are represented by a volume force in the immersed boundary methods. The problem with this representation is that the volume force exhibits non-physical oscillations in moving boundary simulations. A smoothing technique for discrete delta functions has been developed in this paper to suppress the non-physical oscillations in the volume forces. We have found that the non-physical oscillations are mainly due to the fact that the derivatives of the regular discrete delta functions do not satisfy certain moment conditions. It has been shown that the smoothed discrete delta functions constructed in this paper have one-order higher derivative than the regular ones. Moreover, not only the smoothed discrete delta functions satisfy the first two discrete moment conditions, but also their derivatives satisfy one-order higher moment condition than the regular ones. The smoothed discrete delta functions are tested by three test cases: a one-dimensional heat equation with a moving singular force, a two-dimensional flow past an oscillating cylinder, and the vortex-induced vibration of a cylinder. The numerical examples in these cases demonstrate that the smoothed discrete delta functions can effectively suppress the non-physical oscillations in the volume forces and improve the accuracy of the immersed boundary method with direct forcing in moving boundary simulations.

Evaluation of interfacial fluid dynamical stresses using the immersed boundary method

The goal of this paper is to examine the evaluation of interfacial stresses using a standard, finite difference based, immersed boundary method (IMBM). This calculation is not trivial for two fundamental reasons. First, the immersed boundary is represented by a localized boundary force which is distributed to the underlying fluid grid by a discretized delta function. Second, this discretized delta function is used to impose a spatially averaged no-slip condition at the immersed boundary. These approximations can cause errors in interpolating stresses near the immersed boundary.To identify suitable methods for evaluating stresses, we investigate three model flow problems at very low Reynolds numbers. We compare the results of the immersed boundary calculations to those achieved by the boundary element method (BEM). The stress on an immersed boundary may be calculated either by direct evaluation of the fluid stress (FS) tensor or, for the stress jump, by direct evaluation of the locally distributed boundary force (wall stress or WS). Our first model problem is Poiseuille channel flow. Using an analytical solution of the immersed boundary formulation in this simple case, we demonstrate that FS calculations should be evaluated at a distance of approximately one grid spacing inward from the immersed boundary. For a curved immersed boundary we present a procedure for selecting representative interfacial fluid stresses using the concepts from the Poiseuille flow test problem. For the final two model problems, steady state flow over a bump in a channel and unsteady peristaltic pumping, we present an 'exclusion filtering' technique for accurately measuring stresses. Using this technique, these studies show that the immersed boundary method can provide reliable approximations to interfacial stresses.

Pixelization and dynamic range in radio interferometry

This study investigates some of the consequences of representing the sky by a rectangular grid of pixels on the dynamic range of images derived from radio interferometric measurements. In particular, the effects of image pixelization coupled to the CLEAN deconvolution representation of the sky as a set of discrete delta functions can limit the dynamic range obtained when representing bright emission not confined to pixels on the grid. Sky curvature effects on non-coplanar arrays will limit the dynamic range even if strong sources are centered on a pixel in a fly's eye representation when such pixel is not located at the corresponding facet's tangent point. Uncertainties in the response function of the individual antennas as well as in the calibration of actual data due to ionospheric, atmospheric or other effects will limit the dynamic range even when using grid-less subtraction (i.e. in the visibility domain) of strong sources located within the field of view of the observation. A technique to reduce these effects is described and examples from an implementation in the Obit package are given. Application of this technique leads to significantly superior results without a significant increase in the computing time.