Fluidity
Research into the development and application of the generic multi-phase CFD code ’Fluidity‘ is a flagship programme of the 45 person strong Applied Modelling Computational Group , AMCG at Imperial College, headed by Prof. Chris Pain. Its many contributors include Prof. Chris Pain, Dr. Gerard Gorman, Dr. Matt Piggott, Dr. David Ham, Dr. Jefferson Gomes.
Detailed explanations of the simulations above showing adaptive meshing capabilities with parallelisation are given under pages on the AMCG wiki. Versatile coupling of solids to fluids is a key objective within Imperial’s AMCG. VGeST research at Imperial is located within AMCG and aims to facilitate multiphysical simulations driven by applications from science and engineering. Currently, successful coupling of computational fluid mechanics with discrete solids is handled through the generic multiphase CFD code “Fluidity” developed by Imperial’s AMCG in the Department of Earth Science and Engineering. We consider VGeST to be a workbench with a perspective that looks mainly towards solids and particulates modelling, with important additional interfacing capabilities for handling fluids-coupled problems. The potential exists to link solids modelling components on VGeST with various interfaces and coupling developments, enabling a range of components using mesh-based and meshless fluids solvers. AMCG is currently developing alternative approaches to tackling multiphysical problems that have a more fluids-based multiphase emphasis. Such problems are increasingly being investigated using AMCG’s user interface, Spud and Diamond. It is envisaged that linkages to VGeST solids modelling components (Shape Library, FEMDEM, and DEM etc) from model building within Diamond will become standard for multiphysical scientific problems.
Extensive information on Fluidity is available on the AMCG wiki.
Itemised below are some of the most important reasons for choosing Fluidity as the generic multiphase CFD code to progress modelling of possibly turbulent free-surface flows for fluid-structure modelling of coarse and fine particulates:
- Fluidity solves the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations, including an arbitrary number of extra tracer fields. These fields can be used to describe physical phenomena in areas of research such as heat transfer, sediment transport, radiation, ocean modelling, and environmental pollution.
- The usage of Fluidity’s mesh adaptive capabilities allows for a refined and computationally optimised discretised domain. This capability is a key factor when the application requires the description of a sharp interface. Without this optimisation, computational cost would be high, and detail level would be limited.
- Error estimation and rate of convergence is well known in Finite Element Methods (FEM), especially when dealing with boundaries.