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An efficient approach for calculating the effective heat conductivity for a class of industrial composite materials, such as metal foams, fibrous glass materials, and the like, is discussed. These materials, used in insulation or in advanced heat exchangers, are characterized by a low volume fraction of the highly conductive material (glass or metal) having a complex, network-like structure and by a large volume fraction of the insulator (air). We assume that the composite materials have constant macroscopic thermal conductivity tensors, which in principle can be obtained by standard up-scaling techniques, that use the concept of representative elementary volumes (REV), i.e. the effective heat conductivities of composite media can be computed by post-processing the solutions of some special cell problems for REVs. We propose, theoretically justify, and numerically study an efficient approach for calculating the effective conductivity for media for which the ratio of low and high conductivities satisfies 1. In this case one essentially only needs to solve the heat equation in the region occupied by the highly conductive media. For a class of problems we show, that under certain conditions on the microscale geometry, the proposed approach produces an upscaled conductivity that is O() close to the exact upscaled permeability. A number of numerical experiments are presented in order to illustrate the accuracy and the limitations of the proposed method. Applicability of the presented approach to upscaling other similar problems, e.g. flow in fractured porous media, is also discussed.
Abstract — Various advanced two-level iterative methods are studied numerically and compared with each other in conjunction with finite volume discretizations of symmetric 1-D elliptic problems with highly oscillatory discontinuous coefficients. Some of the methods considered rely on the homogenization approach for deriving the coarse grid operator. This approach is considered here as an alternative to the well-known Galerkin approach for deriving coarse grid operators. Different intergrid transfer operators are studied, primary consideration being given to the use of the so-called problemdependent prolongation. The two-grid methods considered are used as both solvers and preconditioners for the Conjugate Gradient method. The recent approaches, such as the hybrid domain decomposition method introduced by Vassilevski and the globallocal iterative procedure proposed by Durlofsky et al. are also discussed. A two-level method converging in one iteration in the case where the right-hand side is only a function of the coarse variable is introduced and discussed. Such a fast convergence for problems with discontinuous coefficients arbitrarily varying on the fine scale is achieved by a problem-dependent selection of the coarse grid combined with problem-dependent prolongation on a dual grid. The results of the numerical experiments are presented to illustrate the performance of the studied approaches.
Approximation property of multipoint flux approximation (MPFA) approach for elliptic equations with discontinuous full tensor coefficients is discussed here. Finite volume discretization of the above problem is presented in the case of jump discontinuities for the permeability tensor. First order approximation for the fluxes is proved. Results from numerical experiments are presented and discussed.
A numerical upscaling approach, NU, for solving multiscale elliptic problems is discussed. The main components of this NU are: i) local solve of auxil- iary problems in grid blocks and formal upscaling of the obtained re sults to build a coarse scale equation; ii) global solve of the upscaled coarse scale equation; and iii) reconstruction of a fine scale solution by solving local block problems on a dual coarse grid. By its structure NU is similar to other methods for solving multiscale elliptic problems, such as the multiscale finite element method, the multiscale mixed finite element method, the numerical subgrid upscaling method, heterogeneous multiscale method, and the multiscale finite volume method. The difference with those methods is in the way the coarse scale equation is build and solved, and in the way the fine scale solution is reconstructed. Essential components of the presented here NU approach are the formal homogenization in the coarse blocks and the usage of so called multipoint flux approximation method, MPFA. Unlike the usual usage as MPFA as a discretiza- tion method for single scale elliptic problems with tensor discontinuous coefficients, we consider its usage as a part of a numerical upscaling approach. The main aim of this paper is to compare NU with the MsFEM. In particular, it is shown that the resonance effect, which limits the application of the Multiscale FEM, does not appear, or it is significantly relaxed, when the presented here numerical upscaling approach is applied.
The performance of oil filters used in the automotive industry can be significantly improved, especially when computer simulation is an essential component of the design process. In this paper, we consider parallel numerical algorithms for solving mathematical models describing the process of filtration, filtering out solid particles from liquid oil. The Navier-Stokes-Brinkmann system of equations is used to describe the laminar flow of incompressible isothermal oil. The space discretization in the complicated filter geometry is based on the finite-volume method. Special care is taken for an accurate approximation of velocity and pressure on the interface between the fluid and the porous media. The time discretization used here is a proper modification of the fractional time step discretization (cf. Chorin scheme) of the Navier-Stokes equations, where the Brinkmann term is considered at both, prediction and correction substeps. A data decomposition method is used to develop a parallel algorithm, where the domain is distributed among processors by using a structured reference grid. The MPI library is used to implement the data communication part of the algorithm. A theoretical model is proposed for the estimation of the complexity of the given parallel algorithm and a scalability analysis is done on the basis of this model. Results of computational experiments are presented, and the accuracy and efficiency of the parallel algorithm is tested on real industrial geometries.
Two-level domain decomposition preconditioner for 3D flows in anisotropic highly heterogeneous porous media is presented. Accurate finite volume discretization based on multipoint flux approximation (MPFA) for 3D pressure equation is employed to account for the jump discontinuities of full permeability tensors. DD/MG type preconditioner for above mentioned problem is developed. Coarse scale operator is obtained from a homogenization type procedure. The influence of the overlapping as well as the influence of the smoother and cell problem formulation is studied. Results from numerical experiments are presented and discussed.
Calculating effective heat conductivity for a class of industrial problems is discussed. The considered composite materials are glass and metal foams, fibrous materials, and the like, used in isolation or in advanced heat exchangers. These materials are characterized by a very complex internal structure, by low volume fraction of the higher conductive material (glass or metal), and by a large volume fraction of the air. The homogenization theory (when applicable), allows to calculate the effective heat conductivity of composite media by postprocessing the solution of special cell problems for representative elementary volumes (REV). Different formulations of such cell problems are considered and compared here. Furthermore, the size of the REV is studied numerically for some typical materials. Fast algorithms for solving the cell problems for this class of problems, are presented and discussed.