This paper examines the effect of spatial roughness on the dynamical behaviour of electrostatic microactuators. We develop a comprehensive physical model that comprises a nonlinear electrostatic actuation force as well as a squeeze-film damping term to accurately simulate the dynamical behavior of a cantilever beam actuator. Spatial roughness is modeled as a nonstationary stochastic process whose parameters can be estimated from profilometric measurements. We propagate the stochastic model through the physical system and examine the resulting uncertainty in the dynamical behavior that manifests as a variation in the quality factor of the device. We identify two distinct, yet coupled, modes of uncertainty propagation in the system, that result from the roughness causing variation in the electrostatic actuation force and the damping pressure, respectively. By artificially turning off each of these modes of propagation in sequence, we demonstrate that the variation in the damping pressure has a greater effect on the damping ratio than that arising from the electrostatic force. Comparison with similar simulations performed using a simplified mass-spring-damper model show that the coupling between these two mechanisms can be captured only when the physical model includes the primary nonlinear interactions along with a proper treatment of spatial variations. We also highlight the difference between nonstationary and stationary covariance formulations by showing that the stationary model is unable to properly capture the full range of variation as compared to its nonstationary counterpart.

A genuine finite volume method based on the lattice Boltzmann equation (LBE) for nearly incompressible flows is developed. The proposed finite volume lattice Boltzmann method (FV-LBM) is grid-transparent, i.e., it requires no knowledge of cell topology, thus it can be implemented on arbitrary unstructured meshes for effective and efficient treatment of complex geometries. Due to the linear advection term in the LBE, it is easy to construct multi-dimensional schemes. In addition, inviscid and viscous fluxes are computed in one step in the LBE, as opposed to in two separate steps for the traditional finite-volume discretization of the Navier-Stokes equations. Because of its conservation constraints, the collision term of the kinetic equation can be treated implicitly without linearization or any other approximation, thus the computational efficiency is enhanced. The collision with multiple-relaxation-time (MRT) model is used in the LBE. The developed FV-LBM is of second-order convergence. The proposed FV-LBM is validated with three test cases in two-dimensions: (a) the Poiseuille flow driven by a constant body force; (b) the Blasius boundary layer; and (c) the steady flow past a cylinder at the Reynolds numbers Re=10, 20, and 40. The results verify the designed accuracy and efficacy of the proposed FV-LBM.

The present work constitutes a fraction of a more extensive study that is devoted to numerical methods in acoustics. More precisely, we address here the interpolation process, which is more and more frequently used in Computational Acoustics – whether it is for enabling multi-stage hybrid calculations, or for easing the proper handling of complex configurations via advanced techniques such as Chimera grids or Immersed Boundary Conditions. In that regard, we focus on high-order interpolation schemes, so as to analyze their intrinsic features and to assess their effective accuracy. Taking advantage of specific insights that had been previously achieved by the present authors regarding standard high-order interpolation schemes (of centered nature), we here focus on their so-called spectral-like optimized counterparts (of both centered and noncentered nature). The latter spectral-like optimized schemes are analyzed thoroughly thanks to dedicated theoretical developments, which allow highlighting better what their strengths and weaknesses are. Among others, the various ways such interpolation schemes can degrade acoustic signals they are applied to are carefully investigated from a theoretical point-of-view. Besides that, specific criteria that could help in optimizing interpolation schemes better are provided, along with generic rules about how to minimize the signal degradation induced by existing interpolation schemes, in practice.

We extend the full wavefield modeling with forward scattering theory and Volterra Renormalization to a vertically varying two-parameter (velocity and density) acoustic medium. The forward scattering series, derived by applying Born-Neumann iterative procedure to the Lippmann-Schwinger equation (LSE), is a well known tool for modeling and imaging. However, it has limited convergence properties depending on the strength of contrast between the actual and reference medium or the angle of incidence of a plane wave component. Here, we introduce the Volterra renormalization technique to the LSE. The renormalized LSE and related Neumann series are absolutely convergent for any strength of perturbation and any incidence angle. The renormalized LSE can further be separated into two sub-Volterra type integral equations, which are then solved non-iteratively. We apply the approach to velocity-only, density-only, and both velocity and density perturbations. We demonstrate that this Volterra Renormalization modeling is a promising and efficient method. In addition, it can also provide insight for developing a scattering theory-based direct inversion method.

The Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM) has established itself as a popular numerical method in computational fluid dynamics. Several advancements have been recently made in LBM, which include multiple-relaxation-time LBM to simulate anisotropic advection-diffusion processes. Because of the importance of LBM simulations for transport problems in subsurface and reactive flows, one needs to study the accuracy and structure preserving properties of numerical solutions under the LBM. The solutions to advective-diffusive systems are known to satisfy maximum principles, comparison principles, the non-negative constraint, and the decay property. In this paper, using several numerical experiments, it will be shown that current single- and multiple-relaxation-time lattice Boltzmann methods fail to preserve these mathematical properties for transient diffusion-type equations. We will also show that these violations may not be removed by simply refining the discretization parameters. More importantly, it will be shown that meeting stability conditions alone does not guarantee the preservation of the aforementioned mathematical principles and physical constraints in the discrete setting. A discussion on the source of these violations and possible approaches to avoid them is included. A condition to guarantee the non-negativity of concentration under LBM in the case of isotropic diffusion is also derived. The impact of this research is twofold. First, the study poses several outstanding research problems, which should guide researchers to develop LBM-based formulations for transport problems that respect important mathematical properties and physical constraints in the discrete setting. This paper can also serve as a good source of benchmark problems for such future research endeavors. Second, this study cautions the practitioners of the LBM for transport problems with the associated numerical deficiencies of the LBM, and provides guidelines for performing predictive simulations of advective-diffusive processes using the LBM.

Velocity of fluid flow in underground porous media is 6∼12 orders of magnitudes lower than that in pipelines. If numerical errors are not carefully controlled in this kind of simulations, high distortion of the final results may occur [1–4]. To fit the high accuracy demands of fluid flow simulations in porous media, traditional finite difference methods and numerical integration methods are discussed and corresponding high-accurate methods are developed. When applied to the direct calculation of full-tensor permeability for underground flow, the high-accurate finite difference method is confirmed to have numerical error as low as 10⁻⁵% while the high-accurate numerical integration method has numerical error around 0%. Thus, the approach combining the high-accurate finite difference and numerical integration methods is a reliable way to efficiently determine the characteristics of general full-tensor permeability such as maximum and minimum permeability components, principal direction and anisotropic ratio.

The differential capacitance of electric double-layer capacitors is studied by developing a generalized model of the self-consistent Gaussian field theory. This model includes many-body effects of particles near the interface such as ionic sizes, the order of water alignment and electrostatic correlations, and thus can present more accurate predictions of the electric double-layer structure and hence the capacitance than traditional continuum theories. Analytical simplification of the model and efficient numerical method are introduced, in particular, the approximation of the self-Green's function which describes the self energy of a mobile ion. We show that, when the applied voltage on interfaces is small the dielectric effect of the electrode materials plays an important role. For large voltage, this effect is screened, but the dielectric saturation due to the alignment of the nearby water is shown to be essential. For 2:1 electrolytes, abnormal enhancement on the capacitance due to the dielectric electrode is observed, which is due to the interplay of the image charge effect and Born solvation energy in the self energy of ions.

A hybrid grid based second-order finite volume algorithm has been developed for Detached-Eddy Simulation (DES) of turbulent flows. To alleviate the effect caused by the numerical dissipation of the commonly used second order upwind schemes in implementing DES with unstructured computational fluid dynamics (CFD) algorithms, an improved second-order hybrid scheme is established through modifying the dissipation term of the standard Roe's flux-difference splitting scheme and the numerical dissipation of the scheme can be self-adapted according to the DES flow field information. By Fourier analysis, the dissipative and dispersive features of the new scheme are discussed. To validate the numerical method, DES formulations based on the two most popular background turbulence models, namely, the one equation Spalart-Allmaras (SA) turbulence model and the two equation k−ω Shear Stress Transport model (SST), have been calibrated and tested with three typical numerical examples (decay of isotropic turbulence, NACA0021 airfoil at 60^◦ incidence and 65^◦ swept delta wing). Computational results indicate that the issue of numerical dissipation in implementing DES can be alleviated with the hybrid scheme, the resolution for turbulence structures is significantly improved and the corresponding solutions match the experimental data better. The results demonstrate the potentiality of the present DES solver for complex geometries.

Implicit time integration schemes are popular because their relaxed stability constraints can result in better computational efficiency. For time-accurate unsteady simulations, it has been well recognized that the inherent dispersion and dissipation errors of implicit Runge-Kutta schemes will reduce the computational accuracy for large time steps. Yet for steady state simulations using the time-dependent governing equations, these errors are often overlooked because the intermediate solutions are of less interest. Based on the model equation dy/dt = (µ+iλ)y of scalar convection diffusion systems, this study examines the stability limits, dispersion and dissipation errors of four diagonally implicit Runge-Kutta-type schemes on the complex (µ+iλ)∆t plane. Through numerical experiments, it is shown that, as the time steps increase, the A-stable implicit schemes may not always have reduced CPU time and the computations may not always remain stable, due to the inherent dispersion and dissipation errors of the implicit Runge-Kutta schemes. The dissipation errors may decelerate the convergence rate, and the dispersion errors may cause large oscillations of the numerical solutions. These errors, especially those of high wavenumber components, grow at large time steps. They lead to difficulty in the convergence of the numerical computations, and result in increasing CPU time or even unstable computations as the time step increases. It is concluded that an optimal implicit time integration scheme for steady state simulations should have high dissipation and low dispersion.

This paper describes an application of the recently developed sparse scheme of the method of fundamental solutions (MFS) for the simulation of three-dimensional modified Helmholtz problems. The solution to the given problems is approximated by a two-step strategy which consists of evaluating the particular solution and the homogeneous solution. The homogeneous solution is approximated by the traditional MFS. The original dense system of the MFS formulation is condensed into a sparse system based on the exponential decay of the fundamental solutions. Hence, the homogeneous solution can be efficiently obtained. The method of particular solutions with polyharmonic spline radial basis functions and the localized method of approximate particular solutions in combination with the Gaussian radial basis function are employed to approximate the particular solution. Three numerical examples including a near singular problem are presented to show the simplicity and effectiveness of this approach.

We present RECFMM, a program representation and implementation of a recursive scheme for parallelizing the adaptive fast multipole method (FMM) on shared-memory computers. It achieves remarkable high performance while maintaining mathematical clarity and flexibility. The parallelization scheme signifies the recursion feature that is intrinsic to the FMM but was not well exploited. The program modules of RECFMM constitute a map between numerical computation components and advanced architecture mechanisms. The mathematical structure is preserved and exploited, neither obscured nor compromised, by parallel rendition of the recursion scheme. Modern software system – CILK in particular, which provides graph-theoretic optimal scheduling in adaptation to the dynamics in parallel execution – is employed. RECFMM supports multiple algorithm variants that mark the major advances with low-frequency interaction kernels, and includes the asymmetrical version where the source particle ensemble is not necessarily the same as the target particle ensemble. We demonstrate parallel performance with Coulomb and screened Coulomb interactions.