Academic literature on the topic 'Multiscale flow'

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mathematics, 2007.<br>This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.<br>Includes bibliographical references (p. 245-254).<br>Granular materials are common in everyday experience, but have long-resisted a complete theoretical description. Here, we consider the regime of slow, dense granular flow, for which there is no general model, representing a considerable hurdle to industry, where grains and powders must frequently be manipulated. Much of the complexity of modeling granular materials stems from the discreteness of the constituent particles, and a key theme of this work has been the connection of the microscopic particle motion to a bulk continuum description. This led to development of the "spot model", which provides a microscopic mechanism for particle rearrangement in dense granular flow, by breaking down the motion into correlated group displacements on a mesoscopic length scale. The spot model can be used as the basis of a multiscale simulation technique which can accurately reproduce the flow in a large-scale discrete element simulation of granular drainage, at a fraction of the computational cost. In addition, the simulation can also successfully track microscopic packing signatures, making it one of the first models of a flowing random packing. To extend to situations other than drainage ultimately requires a treatment of material properties, such as stress and strain-rate, but these quantities are difficult to define in a granular packing, due to strong heterogeneities at the level of a single particle. However, they can be successfully interpreted at the mesoscopic spot scale, and this information can be used to directly test some commonly-used hypotheses in modeling granular materials, providing insight into formulating a general theory.<br>by Christopher Harley Rycroft.<br>Ph.D.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2011.<br>Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.<br>Includes bibliographical references.<br>The design of entrained flow gasifiers and their operation has largely been an experience based enterprise. Most, if not all, industrial scale gasifiers were designed before it was practical to apply CFD models. Moreover, gasification CFD models developed over the years may have lacked accuracy or have not been tested over a wide range of operating conditions, gasifier geometries and feedstock compositions. One reason behind this shortcoming is the failure to incorporate detailed physics and chemistry of the coupled non-linear phenomena occurring during solid fuel gasification. In order to accurately predict some of the overall metrics of gasifier performance, like fuel conversion and syngas composition, we need to first gain confidence in the sub-models of the various physical and chemical processes in the gasifier. Moreover, in a multiphysics problem like gasification modeling, one needs to balance the effort expended in any one submodel with its effect on the accuracy of predicting some key output parameters. Focusing on these considerations, a multiscale CFD gasification model is constructed in this work with special emphasis on the development and validation of key submodels including turbulence, particle turbulent dispersion and char consumption models. The integrated model is validated with experimental data from various pilot-scale and laboratory-scale gasifier designs, further building confidence in the predictive capability of the model. Finally, the validated model is applied to ascertain the impact of changing the values of key operating parameters on the performance of the MHI and GE gasifiers. The model is demonstrated to provide useful quantitative estimates of the expected gain or loss in overall carbon conversion when critical operating parameters such as feedstock grinding size, gasifier mass throughput and pressure are varied.<br>by Mayank Kumar.<br>Ph.D.

The topic of this thesis is fast and accurate simulation techniques used for simulations of flow and transport in porous media, in particular petroleum reservoirs. Fast and accurate simulation techniques are becoming increasingly important for reservoir management and development, as the geological models increase in size and level of detail and require more computational resources to be utilized. The multiscale framework is a promising approach to facilitate simulation of detailed geological models. In contrast to traditional upscaling approaches, the multiscale methods have the detailed geological models present at all times. The work in this thesis includes development of a multiscale-multiphysics method for naturally fractured reservoirs and a new coarsening strategy for geological models to facilitate fast and accurate transport simulations in a multiscale framework. In addition, the work comprises an application of the multiscale framework for flow and transport simulation for rate optimization loops. The coarsening strategy generates flow-based transport grids and is based on amalgamating cells from a fine model, typically the geological model, according to an indicator function. The research indicates a great potential for flexibility and scalability suitable for multi-fidelity simulators

This thesis is about the stabilization of the numerical solution of the Euler and Navier- Stokes equations of compressible flow. When simulating numerically the flow equations, if no stabilization is added, the solution presents non-physical (but numerical) oscillations. For this reason the stabilization of partial differential equations and of the fluid dynamics equations is of great importance. In the framework of the so-called variational multiscale stabilization, we present here a stabilization method for compressible flow. The method assessment is done first of all on a batch of academical examples for different Mach numbers, for viscous and inviscid, steady and transient flow. Afterwards the method is applied to atmospheric flow simulations. To this end we solve the Euler equations for dry and moist atmospheric flow. In the presence of moisture a set of transport equations for water species should be solved as well. This domain of application is a real challenge from the stabilization point of view because the correct amount of stabilization must be added in order to preserve the physical properties of the atmospheric flow. At this point, in order to even improve our method, we turn towards local preconditioning. Local preconditiong permits to reduce the stiffness problems that present the flow equations and cause a bad and slow convergence to the solution. With this purpose in mind we combine our stabilization method with local preconditioning and present a stabilization method for the preconditioned Navier-Stokes equations of compressible flow, that we call P-VMS. This method is tested over several examples at different Mach numbers and proves a significant improvement not only in the convergence to the solution but also in the accuracy and robustness of the method. Finally, the benefits of P-VMS are theoretically assessed using Fourier stability analysis. As a result of this analysis a modification on the computation of the time step is done even improving the convergence of the method.<br>Aquesta tesi tracta sobre l'estabilització de la solució numèrica de les equacions d'Euler i Navier-Stokes de flux compressible. Quan es simulen numèricament les equacions que governen els fluids, si no s'afegeix cap estabilització, la solució presenta oscil·lacions no físiques sinó numèriques. Per aquest motiu l'estabilització de les equacions en derivades parcials i de les equacions de la mecànica de fluids és de gran importància. Dins del marc de l'anomenada estabilització de multiescales variacionals, presentem aquí un mètode d'estabilització per flux compressible. L'evaluació del mètode es realitza primer en varis exemples acadèmics per diferents nombres de Mach, per flux viscós, inviscid, estacionari i transitori. Després el mètode s'aplica a simulacions de flux atmosfèric. Per això, resolem les equacions d'Euler per flux atmosfèric sec i humit. En presència d'humitat, també s'ha de resoldre un grup d'equacions de transport d'espècies d'aigua. Aquest domini d'aplicació representa un desafiament des del punt de vista de l'estabilització, donat que s'ha d'afegir la quantitat adequada d'estabilització per tal de preservar les propietats físiques del flux atmosfèric. Arribat aquest punt, per tal de millorar el nostre mètode, ens interessem pels precondicionadors locals. Els precondicionadors locals permeten reduir els problemes de rigidesa que presenten les equacions dels fluids i que són causa d'una pitjor i més lenta convergència cap a la solució. Amb aquest propòsit en ment, combinem el nostre mètode d'estabilització amb els precondicionadors locals i presentem un mètode d'estabilització per les equacions de Navier-Stokes de flux compressible, anomenem aquest màtode P-VMS. Aquest mètode es evaluat per mitjà de varis exemples per diferents nombres de Mach i demostra una millora sustancial no només pel que fa la convergència cap a la solució, sinó també en la precisió i robusteza del mètode. Finalment els beneficis del P-VMS es demostren teòricament a través de l'anàlisi d'estabilitat de Fourier. Com a resultat d'aquest anàlisi, sorgeix una modificació en el càlcul del pas de temps que millora un cop més la convergència del mètode

We consider two problems encountered in simulation of fluid flow through porous media. In macroscopic models based on Darcy's law, the permeability field appears as data. The first problem is that the permeability field generally is not entirely known. We consider forward propagation of uncertainty from the permeability field to a quantity of interest. We focus on computing p-quantiles and failure probabilities of the quantity of interest. We propose and analyze improved standard and multilevel Monte Carlo methods that use computable error bounds for the quantity of interest. We show that substantial reductions in computational costs are possible by the proposed approaches. The second problem is fine scale variations of the permeability field. The permeability often varies on a scale much smaller than that of the computational domain. For standard discretization methods, these fine scale variations need to be resolved by the mesh for the methods to yield accurate solutions. We analyze and prove convergence of a multiscale method based on the Raviart–Thomas finite element. In this approach, a low-dimensional multiscale space based on a coarse mesh is constructed from a set of independent fine scale patch problems. The low-dimensional space can be used to yield accurate solutions without resolving the fine scale.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2008.<br>Includes bibliographical references (p. 75-78).<br>Multiscale phenomena are ubiquitous to flow and transport in porous media. They manifest themselves through at least the following three facets: (1) effective parameters in the governing equations are scale dependent; (2) some features of the flow (especially sharp fronts and boundary layers) cannot be resolved on practical computational grids; and (3) dominant physical processes may be different at different scales. Numerical methods should therefore reflect the multiscale character of the solution. We concentrate on the development of simulation techniques that account for the heterogeneity present in realistic reservoirs, and have the ability to solve for coupled pressure-saturation problems (on coarse grids). We present a variational multiscale mixed finite element method for the solution of Darcy flow in porous media, in which both the permeability field and the source term display a multiscale character. The formulation is based on a multiscale split of the solution into coarse and subgrid scales. This decomposition is invoked in a variational setting that leads to a rigorous definition of a (global) coarse problem and a set of (local) subgrid problems. One of the key issues for the success of the method is the proper definition of the boundary conditions for the localization of the subgrid problems. We identify a weak compatibility condition that allows for subgrid communication across element interfaces, something that turns out to be essential for obtaining high-quality solutions. We also remove the singularities due to concentrated sources from the coarse-scale problem by introducing additional multiscale basis functions, based on a decomposition of fine-scale source terms into coarse and deviatoric components.<br>(cont.) The method is locally conservative and employs a low-order approximation of pressure and velocity at both scales. We illustrate the performance of the method on several synthetic cases, and conclude that the method is able to capture the global and local flow patterns accurately.<br>by Francois-Xavier Dub.<br>S.M.