Numerical simulation of evolution-induced catastrophe

A numerical simulation of damage evolution in a two-dimensional system of micocracks is presented. It reveals that the failure is induced by a cascade of coalescences of microcracks, and the fracture surface appears fractal. A model of evolution-induced catastrophe is introduced. The fractal dimension is found to be a function of evolution rule only. This result could qualitatively explain the correlation of fractal dimension and fracture toughness discovered in experiments.

Influence of liquid bridge volume on the onset of oscillation in floating-zone convection .2. Numerical-simulation

The onset of oscillation in the floating zone convection driven by the gradient of surface tension was studied numerically for an unsteady and two-dimensional model, and studies were concentrated on the influence of liquid bridge volume on the onset of oscillation in comparison with the experimental results in the Paper I. The numerical results agree with the experimental ones presented in the previous paper, in which the distributions of critical applied temperature difference depending on the volume of liquid bridge and a gap range of liquid volume in marginal stability curve were obtained.

Numerical-simulation of ac plasma-arc thermodynamics

A mathematical model and approximate analysis for the energy distribution of an ac plasma arc with a moving boundary is developed. A simplified electrical conductivity function is assumed so that the dynamic behavior of the arc may be determined, independent of the gas type. The model leads to a reduced set of non-linear partial differential equations which governs the quasi-steady ac arc. This system is solved numerically and it is found that convection plays an important role, not only in the temperature distribution, but also in arc disruptions. Moreover, disruptions are found to be influenced by convection only for a limited frequency range. The results of the present studies are applicable to the frequency range of 10-10(2) Hz which includes most industry ac arc frequencies. (C) 1994 Academic Press, Inc.

Numerical-simulation of low supersonic-flow around a sphere

The controlled equations defined in a physical plane are changed into those in a computational plane with coordinate transformations suitable for different Mach number M(infinity). The computational area is limited in the body surface and in the vicinities of detached shock wave and sonic line. Thus the area can be greatly cut down when the shock wave moves away from the body surface as M(infinity) --> 1. Highly accurate, total variation diminishing (TVD) finite-difference schemes are used to calculate the low supersonic flowfield around a sphere. The stand-off distance, location of sonic line, etc. are well comparable with experimental data. The long pending problem concerning a flow passing a sphere at 1.3 greater-than-or-equal-to M(infinity) > 1 has been settled, and some new results on M(infinity) = 1.05 have been presented.

Upwind compact method and direct numerical-simulation of driven flow in a square cavity

A high-order accurate finite-difference scheme, the upwind compact method, is proposed. The 2-D unsteady incompressible Navier-Stokes equations are solved in primitive variables. The nonlinear convection terms in the governing equations are approximated by using upwind biased compact difference, and other spatial derivative terms are discretized by using the fourth-order compact difference. The upwind compact method is used to solve the driven flow in a square cavity. Solutions are obtained for Reynolds numbers as high as 10000. When Re less than or equal to 5000, the results agree well with those in literature. When Re = 7500 and Re = 10000, there is no convergence to a steady laminar solution, and the flow becomes unsteady and periodic.

Numerical simulation of hypersonic viscous flow around space shuttle with method of diffusion analogy

Hypersonic viscous flow around a space shuttle with M(infinity) = 7, Re = 148000 and angle of attack alpha = 5-degrees is simulated numerically with the special Jacobian matrix splitting technique and simplified diffusion analogy method. With the simplified diffusion analogy method the efficiency of computation and resolution of the shock can be improved.

Domain decomposition hybrid method for numerical simulation of bluff body flows:theoretical model and application

The discrete vortex method is not capable of precisely predicting the bluff body flow separation and the fine structure of flow field in the vicinity of the body surface. In order to make a theoretical improvement over the method and to reduce the difficulty in finite-difference solution of N-S equations at high Reynolds number, in the present paper, we suggest a new numerical simulation model and a theoretical method for domain decomposition hybrid combination of finite-difference method and vortex method. Specifically, the full flow. field is decomposed into two domains. In the region of O(R) near the body surface (R is the characteristic dimension of body), we use the finite-difference method to solve the N-S equations and in the exterior domain, we take the Lagrange-Euler vortex method. The connection and coupling conditions for flow in the two domains are established. The specific numerical scheme of this theoretical model is given. As a preliminary application, some numerical simulations for flows at Re=100 and Re-1000 about a circular cylinder are made, and compared with the finite-difference solution of N-S equations for full flow field and experimental results, and the stability of the solution against the change of the interface between the two domains is examined. The results show that the method of the present paper has the advantage of finite-difference solution for N-S equations in precisely predicting the fine structure of flow field, as well as the advantage of vortex method in efficiently computing the global characteristics of the separated flow. It saves computer time and reduces the amount of computation, as compared with pure N-S equation solution. The present method can be used for numerical simulation of bluff body flow at high Reynolds number and would exhibit even greater merit in that case.