Gas Evolution Model Research Articles

Compact high-order gas-kinetic scheme for direct numerical simulation of compressible turbulent flows

In this paper, the three-dimensional fully compact high-order gas-kinetic scheme (HGKS) is proposed for the direct numerical simulation of compressible turbulent flows. Because of the high-order gas evolution model, the numerical fluxes as well as the point-wise conservative variables can be evaluated from the time-accurate gas distribution function at the cell interface. As a result, both the cell-averaged variables and their cell-averaged gradients can be updated inside each cell. Based on the cell averaged values and their gradients, the compact Hermite weighted essentially non-oscillatory (HWENO) scheme is developed, in which the dimension-by-dimension reconstruction is used for three-dimensional turbulences. In both normal and tangential directions, the fifth-order HWENO reconstruction is adopted. Compared with the classical WENO scheme, the stencil for the HWENO scheme only contains 33 cells for each cell. To achieve the temporal accuracy, the two-stage fourth-order temporal discretization is used. For the evaluation of point-wise variables, the simplified third-order gas-kinetic solver is used. Several classical benchmark problems are simulated, which validate the accuracy, resolution, and robustness of compact HGKS. As a comparison, the numerical results of HGKS using non-compact WENO reconstruction are also provided. Due to the compact stencil, the compact HGKS has a favorable performance for turbulence simulation in resolving the multi-scale structures.

Bayesian calibration with summary statistics for the prediction of xenon diffusion in UO2 nuclear fuel

The evolution and release of fission gas impacts the performance of UO2 nuclear fuel. We have created a Bayesian framework to calibrate a novel model for fission gas transport that predicts diffusion rates of uranium and xenon in UO2 under both thermal equilibrium and irradiation conditions. Data sets are taken from historical diffusion, gas release, and thermodynamic experiments. These data sets consist invariably of summary statistics, including a measurement value with an associated uncertainty. Our calibration strategy uses synthetic data sets in order to estimate the parameters in the model, such that the resulting model predictions agree with the reported summary statistics. In doing so, the reported uncertainties are effectively reflected in the inferred uncertain parameters. Furthermore, to keep our approach computationally tractable, we replace the fission gas evolution model by a polynomial surrogate model with a reduced number of parameters, which are identified using global sensitivity analysis. We discuss the efficacy of our calibration strategy, and investigate how the contribution of the different data sets, taken from multiple sources in the literature, can be weighted in the likelihood function constructed as part of our Bayesian calibration setup, in order to account for the different number of data points in each set of data summaries. Our results indicate a good match between the calibrated diffusivity and non-stoichiometry predictions and the given data summaries. We demonstrate a good agreement between the calibrated xenon diffusivity and the established fit from Turnbull et al. (1982), indicating that the dominant uranium vacancy diffusion mechanism in the model is able to capture the trends in the data.

A compact high-order gas-kinetic scheme on unstructured mesh for acoustic and shock wave computations

Following the development of a third-order compact gas-kinetic scheme (GKS) for the Euler and Navier-Stokes equations (Ji et al. (2020) [40]), in this paper a higher-order compact GKS up to sixth order of accuracy will be constructed for the shock and acoustic wave computation on unstructured mesh. The compactness is defined by the physical domain of dependence for an unstructured triangular cell, which may involve the closest neighbors of neighboring cells. The compactness and high-order accuracy of the scheme are coming from the consistency between the high-order initial reconstruction and the high-order gas evolution model under GKS framework. The high-order evolution solution at a cell interface provides not only a time-accurate flux function, but also the time-evolving flow variables. Therefore, the cell-averaged flow variables and their gradients can be explicitly updated at the next time level from the moments of the same time-dependent gas distribution function. Based on the cell averaged flow variables and their cell-averaged derivatives, the nonlinear high-order compact reconstruction can be obtained for these variables in the evaluation of local equilibrium and non-equilibrium states. The current nonlinear reconstruction is a combination of WENO and ENO methodology, which is specifically suitable for compact GKS on unstructured mesh with a high-order (≥4) accuracy. The initial piecewise discontinuous reconstruction is used for the determination of non-equilibrium state and an evolved smooth reconstruction for the equilibrium state. The evolution model in GKS is based on a relaxation process from non-equilibrium to equilibrium state. The time-accurate gas distribution function provides the Navier-Stokes (NS) flux function directly without separating the inviscid and viscous terms, which simplifies the numerical discretization of the NS equations directly on unstructured mesh. Based on the time-accurate flux solver, the two-stage fourth-order time discretization can be applied to get a fourth-order time-accurate solution with only two stages, which reduces two reconstructions in comparison with the same order Runge-Kutta time stepping method. The current high-order GKS can uniformly capture acoustic and shock waves without identifying troubled cells and implementing additional limiting procedure. In addition, the fourth- up to sixth-order compact GKS can use almost the same time step as a second-order shock capturing scheme in most flow problems. The fourth-order GKS on unstructured mesh will be used in the computations from low speed incompressible viscous flow to the high Mach number shock interaction. The accuracy, efficiency, and robustness of the scheme have been validated. The main conclusion of the paper is that beyond the first-order Riemann solver, the use of high-order gas evolution model seems have advantages in the development of high-order schemes.

A Gradient Compression-Based Compact High-Order Gas-Kinetic Scheme on 3D Hybrid Unstructured Meshes

In this paper, a compact gas-kinetic scheme (CGKS) for compressible flow is constructed on hybrid unstructured mesh. Based on high-order gas evolution model at cell interfaces both cell-averaged flow variables and their gradients can be updated in CGKS and used in a compact third-order multi-resolution WENO reconstruction. In the precious CGKS, the flow variables at a cell interface are assumed to be continuous in space in the update of cell-averaged slopes. In order to improve the robustness of the scheme in discontinuous region in three-dimensional space, a compression factor for the cell-averaged gradients is proposed to take into account the possible discontinuity at cell interfaces. The accuracy of the scheme doesn't deteriorate with the implementation of the compression factor. Numerical tests from incompressible to hypersonic flow are presented to validate the high-order CGKS and demonstrate the effectiveness of the gradient compression factor for three-dimensional flow simulation on unstructured mesh.

Compact High-Order Gas-Kinetic Scheme for Three-Dimensional Flow Simulations

A third-order compact gas-kinetic scheme is proposed for three-dimensional compressible flow computations. The new scheme is based on three key ingredients: the time-accurate gas evolution model for interface flux, the Hermite weighted essentially nonoscillatory reconstruction, and the two-stage temporal discretization. In contrast to the Riemann-solver-based methods, due to the use of time-accurate flux function the proposed scheme can achieve a third-order temporal accuracy with two stages instead of three stages in the standard Runge–Kutta method. As an extension of the existing high-order reconstructions, a Hermite weighted essentially nonoscillatory reconstruction is specifically designed for the current scheme with the implementation of the constrained least-square technique, which subsequently improves the accuracy and robustness of the compact scheme. There is no trouble cell identification in the current scheme. A third-order accuracy can be achieved even with curved boundary. Numerical examples for both smooth and discontinuous flows show the robustness and high accuracy of the compact third-order scheme, which has a comparable performance as the fifth-order noncompact gas-kinetic scheme. A large Courant–Friedrichs–Lewy number around 0.5 can be used in the computations.

An Acoustic and Shock Wave Capturing Compact High-Order Gas-Kinetic Scheme with Spectral-Like Resolution

A compact high-order gas-kinetic scheme (GKS) with spectral resolution will be presented and used in the simulation of acoustic and shock waves. Based on high-order gas evolution model, the GKS provides a time accurate solution at a cell interface, from which both time accurate flux function and flow variables can be obtained for updating cell averaged conservative flow variables and gradients. Based on cell-averaged flow variables and gradients, a reconstruction with compact stencil up to eighth-order spacial accuracy can be achieved, which include the nonlinear reconstruction for initial non-equilibrium state and linear reconstruction for the equilibrium one. The GKS unifies the nonlinear and linear reconstruction through a time evolution process at a cell interface from the non-equilibrium state to an equilibrium one. In the smooth acoustic wave region, the linear reconstruction will contribute mainly to the evolution. In the non-equilibrium shock region, the nonlinear reconstruction will play a dominant role.

Compact higher-order gas-kinetic schemes with spectral-like resolution for compressible flow simulations

In this paper, a class of compact higher-order gas-kinetic schemes (GKS) with spectral-like resolution will be presented. Based on the high-order gas evolution model, both the flux function and conservative flow variables in GKS can be evaluated explicitly from the time-accurate gas distribution function at a cell interface. As a result, inside each control volume both the cell-averaged flow variables and their cell-averaged gradients can be updated within each time step. The flow variable update and slope update are coming from the same physical solution at the cell interface. This strategy needs time accurate solution at a cell interface, which cannot be achieved by the Riemann problem based flow solvers, even though they can also provide the interface flux functions and interface flow variables. Instead, in order to update the slopes in the Riemann-solver based schemes, such as HWENO, there are additional governing equations for slopes or equivalent degrees of freedom inside each cell. In GKS, only a single time accurate gas evolution model is needed at the cell interface for updating cell averaged flow variables through interface fluxes and updating the cell averaged slopes through the interface flow variables. Based on both cell averaged values and their slopes, compact 6th-order and 8th-order linear and nonlinear reconstructions can be developed. As analyzed in this paper, the local linear compact reconstruction without limiter can achieve a spectral-like resolution at large wavenumber than the well-established compact scheme of Lele with globally coupled flow variables and their derivatives. For nonlinear gas dynamic evolution, in order to avoid spurious oscillation in discontinuous region, the above compact linear reconstruction from the symmetric stencil can be divided into sub-stencils and apply a biased nonlinear WENO-Z reconstruction. Consequently discontinuous solutions can be captured through the 6th-order and 8th-order compact WENO-type nonlinear reconstruction. In GKS, the time evolution solution of the gas distribution function at a cell interface is based on an integral solution of the kinetic model equation, which covers a physical process from an initial non-equilibrium state to a final equilibrium one. Since the initial non-equilibrium state is obtained based on the nonlinear WENO-Z reconstruction, and the equilibrium state is basically constructed from the linear symmetric reconstruction, the GKS evolution models unifies the nonlinear and linear reconstructions in a gas relaxation process in the determination of a time-dependent gas distribution function. This property gives GKS great advantages in capturing both discontinuous shock waves and the linear aero-acoustic waves in a single computation due to its dynamical adaptation of non-equilibrium and equilibrium states in different flow regions. This dynamically adaptive model helps to solve a long lasting problem in the development of high-order schemes about the choices of the linear and nonlinear reconstructions. Compared with discontinuous Galerkin (DG) scheme, the current compact GKS uses the same local and compact stencil, achieves the 6th-order and 8th-order accuracy, uses a much larger time step with CFL number ≥ 0.3, has the robustness as a 2nd-order scheme, and gets accurate solutions in both shock and smooth regions without introducing trouble cell and additional limiting process. The nonlinear reconstruction in the compact GKS is solely based on the WENO-Z technique. At the same time, the current scheme solves the Navier-Stokes equations automatically due to combined inviscid and viscous flux terms from a single time evolution gas distribution function at a cell interface. Due to the use of multi-stage multi-derivative (MSMD) time-stepping technique, for achieving a 4th-order time accuracy, the current scheme uses only two stages instead of four in the traditional Runge-Kutta method. As a result, the current GKS becomes much more efficient than the corresponding same order DG method. A variety of numerical tests are presented to validate the compact 6th and 8th-order GKS. The current scheme presents a state-of-art numerical solutions under a wide range of flow conditions, i.e., strong shock discontinuity, shear instability, aero-acoustic wave propagation, and NS solutions. It promotes the development of high-order scheme to a new level of maturity. The success of the current scheme crucially depends on the high-order gas evolution model, which cannot be achieved by any other approach once the 1st-order Riemann flux function is still used in the development of high-order numerical algorithms.

A compact fourth-order gas-kinetic scheme for the Euler and Navier–Stokes equations

In this paper, a fourth-order compact gas-kinetic scheme (GKS) is developed for the compressible Euler and Navier–Stokes equations under the framework of two-stage fourth-order temporal discretization and Hermite WENO (HWENO) reconstruction. Due to the high-order gas evolution model, the GKS provides a time dependent gas distribution function at a cell interface. This time evolution solution can be used not only for the flux evaluation across a cell interface and its time derivative, but also time accurate flow variables at a cell interface. As a result, besides updating the conservative flow variables inside each control volume, the cell averaged slopes inside each control volume through the differences of flow variables at the cell interfaces can be updated as well in GKS. So, with the updated flow variables and their slopes inside each cell, the HWENO techniques can be naturally implemented for the compact high-order reconstruction at the beginning of each time step. Therefore, a compact higher-order GKS, such as the two-stage fourth-order compact scheme can be constructed. This fourth-order compact GKS has the same stencil and as robust as the second-order scheme. In comparison with the fourth-order DG method, they have the same stencil. In order to get a fourth-order temporal accuracy, the GKS uses two stages and DG needs four stages in the time stepping methods. The CFL number used in GKS is on the order of 0.5 instead of 0.11 in the DG. This research concludes that beyond the first-order Riemann solver the use of high-order time evolution model at a cell interface is extremely helpful in the design of robust, accurate, and efficient higher-order compact schemes for the compressible flow simulations.

A third-order compact gas-kinetic scheme on unstructured meshes for compressible Navier–Stokes solutions

In this paper, for the first time a third-order compact gas-kinetic scheme is proposed on unstructured meshes for the compressible viscous flow computations. The possibility to design such a third-order compact scheme is due to the high-order gas evolution model, where a time-dependent gas distribution function at cell interface not only provides the fluxes across a cell interface, but also presents a time accurate solution for flow variables at cell interface. As a result, both cell averaged and cell interface flow variables can be used for the initial data reconstruction at the beginning of next time step. A weighted least-square procedure has been used for the initial reconstruction. Therefore, a compact third-order gas-kinetic scheme with the involvement of neighboring cells only can be developed on unstructured meshes. In comparison with other conventional high-order schemes, the current method avoids the Gaussian point integration for numerical fluxes along a cell interface and the multi-stage Runge–Kutta method for temporal accuracy. The third-order compact scheme is numerically stable under CFL condition CFL≈0.5. Due to its multidimensional gas-kinetic formulation and the coupling of inviscid and viscous terms, even with unstructured meshes, the boundary layer solution and vortex structure can be accurately captured by the current scheme. At the same time, the compact scheme can capture strong shocks as well.

A Compact Third-Order Gas-Kinetic Scheme for Compressible Euler and Navier-Stokes Equations

AbstractIn this paper, a compact third-order gas-kinetic scheme is proposed for the compressible Euler and Navier-Stokes equations. The main reason for the feasibility to develop such a high-order scheme with compact stencil, which involves only neighboring cells, is due to the use of a high-order gas evolution model. Besides the evaluation of the time-dependent flux function across a cell interface, the high-order gas evolution model also provides an accurate time-dependent solution of the flow variables at a cell interface. Therefore, the current scheme not only updates the cell averaged conservative flow variables inside each control volume, but also tracks the flow variables at the cell interface at the next time level. As a result, with both cell averaged and cell interface values, the high-order reconstruction in the current scheme can be done compactly. Different from using a weak formulation for high-order accuracy in the Discontinuous Galerkin method, the current scheme is based on the strong solution, where the flow evolution starting from a piecewise discontinuous high-order initial data is precisely followed. The cell interface time-dependent flow variables can be used for the initial data reconstruction at the beginning of next time step. Even with compact stencil, the current scheme has third-order accuracy in the smooth flow regions, and has favorable shock capturing property in the discontinuous regions. It can be faithfully used from the incompressible limit to the hypersonic flow computations, and many test cases are used to validate the current scheme. In comparison with many other high-order schemes, the current method avoids the use of Gaussian points for the flux evaluation along the cell interface and the multi-stage Runge-Kutta time stepping technique. Due to its multidimensional property of including both derivatives of flow variables in the normal and tangential directions of a cell interface, the viscous flow solution, especially those with vortex structure, can be accurately captured. With the same stencil of a second order scheme, numerical tests demonstrate that the current scheme is as robust as well-developed second-order shock capturing schemes, but provides more accurate numerical solutions than the second order counterparts.

Direct modeling-based computational fluid dynamics

A new principle for constructing CFD scheme for multiscale and multiphysics flow computation is proposed. The principle is about the direct modeling in the discrete space and the use of cross-scale time evolution solution in the construction of numerical method. In comparison with traditional CFD method, where a direct discretization is used for the partial differential equation (PDE), the new numerical methodology takes into account the mesh size effect and its associated evolution solution in the mesh size scale. As a result, with the variation of mesh size with respect to the local particle mean free path, a continuous spectrum of gas evolution model from the kinetic to the hydrodynamic scales can be recovered. For many multiscale flow problems, the governing equations may not be available, but the direct modeling can be still used to simulate different scale gas evolution process. The cross-scale time evolution solution from the model Boltzmann equation plays a central role in the direct modeling. Based on the direct modeling principle, the unified gas-kinetic scheme for the entire Knudsen number flow has been constructed. The excellent performance of the scheme validates the feasibility and advantage of the present CFD principle.

A high-order multidimensional gas-kinetic scheme for hydrodynamic equations

This paper concerns the development of high-order multidimensional gas kinetic schemes for the Navier-Stokes solutions. In the current approach, the state-of-the-art WENO-type initial reconstruction and the gas-kinetic evolution model are used in the construction of the scheme. In order to distinguish the physical and numerical requirements to recover a physical solution in a discretized space, two particle collision times will be used in the current high-order gas-kinetic scheme (GKS). Different from the low order gas dynamic model of the Riemann solution in the Godunov type schemes, the current method is based on a high-order multidimensional gas evolution model, where the space and time variation of a gas distribution function along a cell interface from an initial piecewise discontinuous polynomial is fully used in the flux evaluation. The high-order flux function becomes a unification of the upwind and central difference schemes. The current study demonstrates that both the high-order initial reconstruction and high-order gas evolution model are important in the design of a high-order numerical scheme. Especially, for a compact method, the use of a high-order local evolution solution in both space and time may become even more important, because a short stencil and local low order dynamic evolution model, i.e., the Riemann solution, are contradictory, where valid mechanism for the update of additional degrees of freedom becomes limited.

Comparison of Fifth-Order WENO Scheme and Finite Volume WENO-Gas-Kinetic Scheme for Inviscid and Viscous Flow Simulation

AbstractThe development of high-order schemes has been mostly concentrated on the limiters and high-order reconstruction techniques. In this paper, the effect of the flux functions on the performance of high-order schemes will be studied. Based on the same WENO reconstruction, two schemes with different flux functions, i.e., the fifth-order WENO method and the WENO-Gas-kinetic scheme (WENO-GKS), will be compared. The fifth-order finite difference WENO-SW scheme is a characteristic variable reconstruction based method which uses the Steger-Warming flux splitting for inviscid terms, the sixth-order central difference for viscous terms, and three stages Runge-Kutta time stepping for the time integration. On the other hand, the finite volume WENO-GKS is a conservative variable reconstruction based method with the same WENO reconstruction. But, it evaluates a time dependent gas distribution function along a cell interface, and updates the flow variables inside each control volume by integrating the flux function along the boundary of the control volume in both space and time. In order to validate the robustness and accuracy of the schemes, both methods are tested under a wide range of flow conditions: vortex propagation, Mach 3 step problem, and the cavity flow at Reynolds number 3200. Our study shows that both WENO-SW and WENO-GKS yield quantitatively similar results and agree with each other very well provided a sufficient grid resolution is used. With the reduction of mesh points, the WENO-GKS behaves to have less numerical dissipation and present more accurate solutions than those from the WENO-SW in all test cases. For the Navier-Stokes equations, since the WENO-GKS couples inviscid and viscous terms in a single flux evaluation, and the WENO-SW uses an operator splitting technique, it appears that the WENO-SW is more sensitive to the WENO reconstruction and boundary treatment. In terms of efficiency, the finite volume WENO-GKS is about 4 times slower than the finite differenceWENO-SW in two dimensional simulations. The current study clearly shows that besides high-order reconstruction, an accurate gas evolution model or flux function in a high-order scheme is also important in the capturing of physical solutions. In a physical flow, the transport, stress deformation, heat conduction, and viscous heating are all coupled in a single gas evolution process. Therefore, it is preferred to develop such a scheme with multi-dimensionality, and unified treatment of inviscid and dissipative terms. A high-order scheme does prefer a high-order gas evolution model. Even with the rapid advances of high-order reconstruction techniques, the first-order dynamics of the Riemann solution becomes the bottleneck for the further development of high-order schemes. In order to avoid the weakness of the low order flux function, the development of high-order schemes relies heavily on the weak solution of the original governing equations for the update of additional degree of freedom, such as the non-conservative gradients of flow variables, which cannot be physically valid in discontinuous regions.

A Unified Gas-Kinetic Scheme for Continuum and Rarefied Flows II: Multi-Dimensional Cases

AbstractWith discretized particle velocity space, a multi-scale unified gas-kinetic scheme for entire Knudsen number flows has been constructed based on the kinetic model in one-dimensional case [J. Comput. Phys., vol. 229 (2010), pp. 7747-7764]. For the kinetic equation, to extend a one-dimensional scheme to multidimensional flow is not so straightforward. The major factor is that addition of one dimension in physical space causes the distribution function to become two-dimensional, rather than axially symmetric, in velocity space. In this paper, a unified gas-kinetic scheme based on the Shakhov model in two-dimensional space will be presented. Instead of particle-based modeling for the rarefied flow, such as the direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method, the philosophical principal underlying the current study is a partial-differential-equation (PDE)-based modeling. Since the valid scale of the kinetic equation and the scale of mesh size and time step may be significantly different, the gas evolution in a discretized space is modeled with the help of kinetic equation, instead of directly solving the partial differential equation. Due to the use of both hydrodynamic and kinetic scales flow physics in a gas evolution model at the cell interface, the unified scheme can basically present accurate solution in all flow regimes from the free molecule to the Navier-Stokes solutions. In comparison with the DSMC and Navier-Stokes flow solvers, the current method is much more efficient than DSMC in low speed transition and continuum flow regimes, and it has better capability than NS solver in capturing of non-equilibrium flow physics in the transition and rarefied flow regimes. As a result, the current method can be useful in the flow simulation where both continuum and rarefied flow physics needs to be resolved in a single computation. This paper will extensively evaluate the performance of the unified scheme from free molecule to continuum NS solutions, and from low speed micro-flow to high speed non-equilibrium aerodynamics. The test cases clearly demonstrate that the unified scheme is a reliable method for the rarefied flow computations, and the scheme provides an important tool in the study of non-equilibrium flow.

Multiple Temperature Gas Dynamic Equations for Non-equilibrium Flows

In an early approach, a kinetic model with multiple translational temperature [K. Xu, H. Liu and J. Jiang, Phys. Fluids 19, 016101 (2007)] to simulate non-equilibrium flows was proposed. In this paper, instead of using three temperatures in the x, y and z-directions, we define the translational temperature as a second-order symmetric tensor. Under the new framework, the differences between the temperature tensor and the pressure tensor will be explicitly pointed out. Based on a multiple stage BGK-type collision model and the Chapman-Enskog expansion, the corresponding macroscopic gas dynamics equations in three-dimensional space will be derived. The zeroth-order expansion gives 10 moment closure equations similar to that of Levermore [C.D. Levermore, J. Stat. Phys 83, pp.1021 (1996)]. The derived gas dynamic equations can be considered as a regularization of the 10 moments equations in the first-order expansion. The new gas dynamic equations have the same structure as the Navier-Stokes equations, but the stress-strain relationship in the Navier-Stokes equations is replaced by an algebraic equation with temperature differences. At the same time, the heat flux, which is absent in Levermore’s 10 moment closure, is recovered. As a result, both the viscous and the heat conduction terms are unified under a single anisotropic temperature concept. In the continuum flow regime, the new gas dynamic equations automatically recover the standard Navier-Stokes equations. Our gas dynamic equations are natural extensions of the Navier-Stokes equations to the near continuum flow regime and can be used for microflow computations. Two examples, the force-driven Poiseuille flow and the Couette flow in the transition flow regime, are used to validate the model. Both analytical and numerical results are presented. Theoretically, the Boltzmann equation can be also applied to the current multiple stage gas evolution model to derive generalized macroscopic governing equations in the near continuum flow regime. Instead of using Maxwellian as an expansion point in the Chapman-Enskog method, the multiple temperature Gaussian can be used as an expansion point as well.

Natural gas generation model and its response in accumulated fluids in the Yinggehai basin

The natural gases found in the Yinggehai basin have nitrogen gas content ranging from 3.5% to 35%, and carbon dioxide content ranging from 0.1% to 93%. The nitrogen and CO 2 contents show a wide variation even in the same gas field. The natural gas generation and evolution model has been established based on the relationship among the contents of nitrogen, carbon dioxide and hydrocarbon gases in the discovered gas fields, and the results of simulation experiments. The thickness of the Tertiary and Quaternary in the Yinggehai basin is over 17 km, and gas generation stages from diagenesis (microbial methane) to metamorphism have been developed. Nitrogen in this basin is organic in origin, and has been generated mainly in the catagenetic stage, roughly synchronous with hydrocarbon gases. Carbon dioxide is mainly inorganic in origin, and has been generated from high-temperature decomposition of carbonates in the metamorphic stage. The Dongfang gas field shows strong inter-reservoir compositional heterogeneities, and different gas reservoirs have recorded the products of gas generation at different stages. It has been confirmed that the complexity in natural gas composition in the Yinggehai basin is the combined results of multi-stage natural gas generation and multi-stage gas injection and accumulation.

Reexamination of the Galaxy Formation–regulated Gas Evolution Model in Groups and Clusters

As an alternative explanation of the entropy excess and the steepening of the X-ray luminosity-temperature relation in groups and clusters, the galaxy formation-regulated gas evolution (GG) model proposed recently by Bryan makes an attempt to incorporate the formation of galaxies into the evolution of gas without additional heating by nongravitational processes. This seems to provide a unified scheme for our understanding of the structures and evolution of both galaxies and gas in groups and clusters. In this paper, we present an extensive comparison of the X-ray properties of groups and clusters predicted by the GG model and those revealed by current X-ray observations, using various large data sources in the literature and also taking the observational selection effects into account. These include an independent check of the fundamental working hypothesis of the GG model, i.e., galaxy formation was less efficient in rich clusters than in groups, a new test of the radial gas distributions revealed by both the gas mass fraction and the X-ray surface brightness profiles, and an reexamination of the X-ray luminosity-temperature and entropy-temperature relations. In particular, it shows that the overall X-ray surface brightness profiles predicted by the GG model are very similar in shape, insensitive to the X-ray temperature, and the shallower X-ray surface brightness profiles seen at low-temperature systems may arise from the current observational selection effect. This can be used as the simplest approach to distinguishing between the GG model and the preheating scenario. The latter yields an intrinsically shallower gas distribution in groups than in rich clusters.

A new class of gas-kinetic relaxation schemes for the compressible Euler equations

Starting from the gas-kinetic model, a new class of relaxation schemes for the Euler equations is presented. In contrast to the Riemann solver, these schemes provide a multidimensional dynamical gas evolution model, which combines both Lax-Wendroff and kinetic flux vector splitting schemes, and their coupling is based on the fact that a nonequilibrium state will evolve into an equilibrium state along with the increase of entropy. The numerical fluxes are constructed without getting into the details of the particle collisions. The results for many well-defined test cases are presented to indicate the robustness and accuracy of the current scheme.