DISCRETIZATION METHOD FOR

MOVING GRIDS

Milovan Perić
CoMeT Continuum Mechanics Technologies GmbH
&
Institute of Ship Technology, Ocean Engineering and Transport
Systems, University of Duisburg-Essen

milovan@comet-cfd.de milovan.peric@uni-due.de
 Introduction

• The aim of this presentation is to show how flow involving

moving walls can be simulated.
• When wall is moving only in tangential direction, it is enough
to specify wall velocity as the Dirichlet boundary condition –
the grid does not have to move.
• If wall is moving in the direction normal to it, it is
– displacing (pushing away) the fluid when it moves inwards,
– sucking (pulling towards wall) the fluid when it moves outwards.
• These effects have to be either modelled (via source terms) or
accounted for by moving the grid with the wall.
• Modelling of wall motion effects is only possible when the
amplitude of wall motion in the normal direction is small.
 Small-Amplitude Wall Motion, I

• In some applications, walls move in an oscillatory manner at

high frequency but small amplitude (e.g., vibration).
• In this case the analysis can be performed using a fixed grid
and equations written for fixed control volumes:

Mass conservation

Momentum conservation

Conservation of scalar 
Time derivative at a fixed location in space
 Small-Amplitude Wall Motion, II

• If a wall moves only in the tangential direction, no special

treatment is needed: one simply specifies wall velocity as the
no-slip boundary condition…
• If a wall moves in the normal direction, one needs to account
for the displacement/suction action by introducing
appropriate mass source terms.
• When a wall in reality moves inwards and displaces fluid, it is
equivalent to having a fixed wall but injecting the same
amount of fluid that the wall would have displaced…
• Accordingly, when a wall moves outward, it sucks fluid
behind it, which can be accounted for with a fixed wall and a
mass sink:
qm = - ( vn)w Sw
mass source/sink wall velocity outward normal wall area
 Moving Grids, I
• If the body motion is irregular, the flow is unsteady from any
viewpoint and in this case one cannot simplify the problem...
• There are several options for numerical simulation of such flows,
both with respect to equations and to grid used...
• One option is to use equations for fixed control volumes and take
body motion into account by evaluating local time derivative
using interpolated solution from the previous time step to the
new grid position:
Solutions from previous time steps interpolated to
the new cell-center location

Cn

Cn-1

Solution at the new time step

 Moving Grids, II

• This is possible if a fully-implicit time-integration method is

used, because then the fluxes and source terms are computed
only at the latest time level.
• In addition to interpolation needed to compute the rate-of-
change term, one also needs to account for wall motion by
introducing mass sources/sinks in cells along walls…
• Interpolation of old solutions to the new cell-centre introduces
additional discretization errors…

Example: linear interpolation

Cn

Cn-1
 Moving Grids, III
• Interpolation errors can be reduced by using higher-order
approximations…
• The problem is the motion of walls in the direction normal to
boundary, because here cells are usually very thin (prism layer
to account for high gradients)…
• … and it can happen that cell centers at the new time step fall
outside solution domain from previous time step – no old
solution available for interpolation…
This approach has been
Time step tn implemented and tested by
● Hidajet Hadžić at TUHH; for
details see his PhD thesis:
Wall ●
Time step tn+1
http://doku.b.tu-harburg.de/
● volltexte/2006/296/index.html
Direction of wall motion ●
 Moving Grids – I

• When solution domain boundaries move over a larger distance,

moving grids have to be used (another possibility are
immersed-boundary methods).
• When grid moves, the so-called space conservation law needs
to be accounted for.
• The equations for moving control volumes are:

(space)

(mass)
(momentum)

Fluid velocity Velocity of CV-boundary

 Moving Grids – II

• Note: the time derivative expresses the change in time but at

two different locations, since CV moves…
• If CV moves with fluid velocity, time derivative becomes mate-
rial derivative, convection terms become zero and CV = CM.
• Space conservation law is not solved as a transport equation,
but fluxes and volumes need to be computed so that it is
satisfied…
• Consider constant density flow:

The first two terms in the continuity

equation represent SCL and must be
zero – also in discretized equations!
 Moving Grids – III

• Thus, in an incompressible flow the continuity equation

reduces to (whether the grid moves or not):

• If grid velocities are not consistent with SCL, artificial mass

sources result…
• Discretized space conservation law (three-time-level scheme):

• Important note: the difference in CV-volume at two time levels

is equal to the sum of volumes swept by each CV-face during
time step:
 Moving Grids – IV

• The SCL is therefore satisfied identically if volume fluxes

through CV-faces are defined as (no need to define grid
velocity):

• The volume fluxes are computed directly from grid position at

two consecutive time levels.
• The mass flux through CV-face is:

Contribution of Contribution of
fluid velocity grid velocity
 Moving Grids – V

• The discretized continuity equation now looks like:

• If grid motion is part of the solution (e.g. flying or floating

bodies), both density and volume representing new solution
need to be updated…

• The computation of volume

swept by faces during one time
step and the computation of cell
volume must be consistent…
 Moving Grids – VI

• The convection fluxes are zero at walls when the analysis is

performed using moving control volumes...
• Fluid displacement by moving walls is taken into account
through control volume motion (grid fluxes)...
• Large time steps can be taken, but temporal discretization
errors will be large if cell faces move too far within one time
step...
• A good test of moving grid implementation: take a closed
solution domain with no inlets/outlets and with fixed
boundaries, set fluid velocity to zero as initial condition, and
just move the interior grid in each time step...
• If SCL is properly implemented, fluid will remain at rest –
otherwise artificial mass sources or sinks will result...
 Piston-Cylinder – I
Simulation of intake and exhaust strokes in a simplified piston-cylinder assembly

Laminar flow

From PhD Thesis by Hidajet Hadžić, TUHH, 2005

 Piston-Cylinder – II

Laminar flow

From PhD Thesis by Hidajet Hadžić, TUHH, 2005

 Piston-Cylinder – III
Intake stroke, xp = 34.847 mm Exhaust stroke, xp = 26.876 mm

SCL: The grid is moved and the Space-Conservation Law is applied

(equations for moving control volumes saved)
LTD: Local Time Derivative approach: equations for fixed control volumes
are solved, old solutions interpolated to the new cell-center location

From PhD Thesis by Hidajet Hadžić, TUHH, 2005

 Centrifugal Pump – I

Pumps need to be optimized to avoid

cavitation and recirculation…
Here the grid attached to rotor
rotates with it – there is a sliding
Suction interface between the rotating and
the fixed domain.
Computation using “frozen-rotor”
approach is not appropriate – the
interaction between rotating and
fixed part is too strong…
Discharge
 Centrifugal Pump – II

Initial (coarse) grid in two sections

through the pump…

Sliding interface
 Centrifugal Pump – III

Pressure distribution on the rotor, computed on the finest grid…

Pressure is well
bellow saturation
level – cavitation
takes place!
 Centrifugal Pump – IV
Pressure distribution in one section, computed on the finest grid…