Title: Automatic grid adaptation for unstructured finite volumes

Authors: J. Wackers, M. Visonneau, Z. Ali

Addresses: Laboratoire de Mecanique des Fluides, Ecole Centrale de Nantes, CNRS-UMR 6598, 44321 Nantes Cedex 3, France. ' Laboratoire de Mecanique des Fluides, Ecole Centrale de Nantes, CNRS-UMR 6598, 44321 Nantes Cedex 3, France. ' Laboratoire de Mecanique des Fluides, Ecole Centrale de Nantes, CNRS-UMR 6598, 44321 Nantes Cedex 3, France

Abstract: An automatic grid refinement method is presented for the simulation of ship flows. It provides directional refinement of unstructured grids and derefinement of refined grids for unsteady simulation, it is fully parallel and includes automatic dynamic load balancing. Different refinement criteria are implemented. Results are presented that confirm the increased accuracy of solutions obtained on refined grids. Refinement around the water surface proves to be very effective for the simulation of strong breaking waves. A pressure gradient criterion is shown to detect the main features of a ship flow and to be able to generate effective fine grids in their entirety.

Keywords: automatic mesh refinement; error indicators; ship flows; finite volumes; parallel implementation; grid adaptation; automatic grid refinement; unstructured grids; refined grids; unsteady simulation; dynamic load balancing; water surface; strong breaking waves.

DOI: 10.1504/IJESMS.2010.031866

International Journal of Engineering Systems Modelling and Simulation, 2010 Vol.2 No.1/2, pp.2 - 11

Published online: 27 Feb 2010 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article