Particle tracking in unstructured, arbitrary polyhedral meshes for use in CFD and molecular dynamics

• Published in: Communications in numerical methods in engineering Vol. 25; no. 3; pp. 263 - 273
• Main Authors: Macpherson, Graham B., Nordin, Niklas, Weller, Henry G.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Chichester, UK John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 01.03.2009; Wiley
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Cross-disciplinary physics: materials science; rheology; droplet spray; Engines and turbines; Exact sciences and technology; Fluid dynamics; Fundamental areas of phenomenology (including applications); General theory; Granular solids; Internal combustion engines: gazoline engine, diesel engines, etc; Material form; Mechanical engineering. Machine design; molecular dynamics; OpenFOAM; particle tracking; Physics; Rheology; Solid mechanics; Structural and continuum mechanics; unstructured mesh; Tracking; Particle motion; Molecular dynamics; Overlap; Discrete element method; Nanostructures; Parallel algorithms; Defects; droplet spray; Droplets; Modelling; Dynamic model; Computer aided design; Mesh generation; OpenFOAM; Unstructured mesh; Fluid dynamics; Computational fluid dynamics; particle tracking; Particle suspension; Polyhedron; Granular materials; Internal combustion engines; Holes; Parallel computation
• ISSN: 1069-8299; 1099-0887
• DOI: 10.1002/cnm.1128

Many classes of engineering fluid dynamics simulation require the tracking of discrete elements, for example, dispersed particles in a solvent, a spray of diesel injected into an internal combustion engine, or the dynamics of granular materials. Realistic simulations often require complex, 3D geometries, generated from CAD models and meshed with unstructured polyhedra, which may be deforming, in motion or spatially decomposed for parallel computation. We present an algorithm to track the motion of particles in such geometries which is designed to be computationally efficient and robust in imperfect 3D meshes where small holes or overlaps are present. It has been applied to a wide range of engineering problems ranging from injected fuel sprays in internal combustion engines to molecular dynamics modelling of nanoscale flows. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.