Adaptive Tetrahedral Remeshing

for Multiphase Flow Simulations in

OpenFOAM

Sandeep Menon and David P. Schmidt

Multiphase Flow Simulation Laboratory

University of Massachusetts Amherst

June 3, 2009
Off-center Droplet Collision

M. Dai and D. P. Schmidt,

“Numerical Simulation of Head-On Droplet Collision: Effect of Viscosity on Maximum Deformation”,
Phys. Fluids, 17(4), 2005.
Motivation

Lagrangian interface tracking:

Interface points move with the interface
normal velocity
The interior mesh automatically adjusts to
maintain mesh quality
We only use simplical meshes
Pros and Cons:
Accurate interface representation.
Direct application of interface boundary
conditions.
Conserves mass very well.
Complicated mesh manipulation with
localized remeshing and interpolation.
Prior Work

Interface tracking capabilities in OpenFOAM:

interTrackFoam - Prior work on interface
tracking by Željko Tuković and Hrvoje Jasak.
Uses the freeSurface library, also developed
by Tuković and Jasak.
Used mesh-motion only - limited deformation
capability.
tetDecomposition mesh motion solver.

Since last year:

Two-dimensional version in OF completed
Demonstrated for ink jets
Published in ILASS 2008, ICLASS 2009
Three Major Code Components

Incompressible PISO solver

Mesh motion
Mesh reconnections
Tetrahedral Mesh Motion

Current state of techniques:

Laplacian smoothing - fast,
simple, but creates
degenerate cells.
Need to associate mesh
motion with mesh quality.
Alternative:
optimization-based
smoothing.
Optimize algebraic mesh
quality metrics.
More expensive than
Laplacian smoothing, but
very effective.
Tetrahedral Mesh Motion

Mesquite Optimization Library:

Developed by Sandia National 12(3V 2 )1/ 3
Mean Ratio = P6
Labs. L2
i e

OpenFOAM wrapper class -

mesquiteSmoother.
Run-time selection of:
É Optimization algorithms: CG,
Steepest Descent, Feasible
Newton, Quasi Newton, etc.
É Quality metrics: Condition
Number, Inverse Mean Ratio,
Aspect Ratio, etc.
É Termination Criteria: Relative
Quality Improvement, L2 norm,
iterations, CPU Time, etc
Atomic Topology Operations

2D Edge Flip 3D Edge Flip

Arbitrary number of tetrahedra sharing an edge.

Dynamic Programming algorithm to define swap configuration.
Combination of Swap Operations

4 cells sharing an edge 2-3 swap Equitorial Polygon 3-2 swap

Possible Configurations

5 sides, 5 ways 6 sides, 14 ways

7 sides, 42 ways
Tetrahedral Bisection and Collapse
Test Case: Rotating & Translating Sphere
Test Case: Rotating & Translating Sphere
Test Case: Rotating & Translating Sphere
Ink Jet Simulation
Conclusion

Work In Progress...
Non-Newtonian effects.
Temperature-dependent viscosity and surface-tension effects.

Future work...
Automated interface topology modifications for droplet
break-up and coalesence.
Effective divergence-free local interpolation.
Hybrid parallelization efforts: MPI and pthreads.