A three-dimensional one-layer particle level set method

Purpose Moving interface problems exist commonly in nature and industry, and the main difficulty is to represent the interface. The purpose of this paper is to capture the accurate interface, a novel three-dimensional one-layer particle level set (OPLS) method is presented by introducing Lagrangian particles to reconstruct the seriously distorted level set function. Design/methodology/approach First, the interface is captured by the level set method. Then, the interface is corrected with only one-layer particles advected with the flow to ensure that the level set function value of the particle is equal to 0. When interfaces are merged, all particles in merged regions are deleted, while the added particles near the generated interface are used to determine the interface as the interface is separated. Findings The OPLS method is validated with well-known benchmark examples, such as the long-term advection of a sphere, the rotation of a three-dimensional slotted disk and sphere, single vortex in a box, sphere merging and separation, deformation of a sphere. The simulation results indicate that the proposed method is found to be highly reliable and accurate. Originality/value This method exhibits excellent conservation of the area bounded by the interface. The extraordinary performance is also shown in dealing with complex interface topological changes.

An Efficient Adaptive Rescaling Scheme for Computing Moving Interface Problems

In this paper, we present an efficient rescaling scheme for computing thelong-timedynamics of expanding interfaces. The idea is to design an adaptive time-space mapping such that in the new time scale, the interfaces evolves logarithmically fast at early growth stage and exponentially fast at later times. The new spatial scale guarantees the conservation of the area/volume enclosed by the interface. Compared with the original rescaling method in [J. Comput. Phys. 225(1) (2007) 554–567], this adaptive scheme dramatically improves the slow evolution at early times when the size of the interface is small. Our results show that the original three-week computation in [J. Comput. Phys. 225(1) (2007) 554–567] can be reproduced in about one day using the adaptive scheme. We then present the largest and most complicated Hele-Shaw simulation up to date.

Immersed Finite Element Method for Interface Problems with Algebraic Multigrid Solver

This article is to discuss the bilinear and linear immersed finite element (IFE) solutions generated from the algebraic multigrid solver for both stationary and moving interface problems. For the numerical methods based on finite difference formulation and a structured mesh independent of the interface, the stiffness matrix of the linear system is usually not symmetric positive-definite, which demands extra efforts to design efficient multigrid methods. On the other hand, the stiffness matrix arising from the IFE methods are naturally symmetric positive-definite. Hence the IFE-AMG algorithm is proposed to solve the linear systems of the bilinear and linear IFE methods for both stationary and moving interface problems. The numerical examples demonstrate the features of the proposed algorithms, including the optimal convergence in both L2and semi-H1norms of the IFE-AMG solutions, the high efficiency with proper choice of the components and parameters of AMG, the influence of the tolerance and the smoother type of AMG on the convergence of the IFE solutions for the interface problems, and the relationship between the cost and the moving interface location.

A Method of Lines Based on Immersed Finite Elements for Parabolic Moving Interface Problems

This article extends the finite element method of lines to a parabolic initial boundary value problem whose diffusion coefficient is discontinuous across an interface that changes with respect to time. The method presented here uses immersed finite element (IFE) functions for the discretization in spatial variables that can be carried out over a fixed mesh (such as a Cartesian mesh if desired), and this feature makes it possible to reduce the parabolic equation to a system of ordinary differential equations (ODE) through the usual semi-discretization procedure. Therefore, with a suitable choice of the ODE solver, this method can reliably and efficiently solve a parabolic moving interface problem over a fixed structured (Cartesian) mesh. Numerical examples are presented to demonstrate features of this new method.