Computation of Nonlinear Free-Surface Flows

• W Tsai ^[1] ; D K P Yue ^[1]
  1. [1] Massachusetts Institute of Technology

     Massachusetts Institute of Technology

     City of Cambridge, Estados Unidos

     
• Localización: Annual review of fluid mechanics, ISSN 0066-4189, Nº. 28, 1996, págs. 249-278
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • We review recent advances in computations of incompressible flows involving a fully nonlinear free surface. Our focus is on the treatment of the free surface and (large) nonlinearity. Both potential as well as rotational and viscous free-surface flows are considered. For the former, we review mixed-Eulerian-Lagrangian boundary-integral methods and the recently developed high-order spectral meth- ods. For the latter, the focus is mainly on volume-discretization methods utilizing Eulerian or boundary-fitted grids. The importance and proper treatment of vis- cous free-surface conditions for these problems are emphasized. We conclude that computations for nonlinear potential-flow wave problems are reasonably mature although further developments to improve efficiency and robustness are needed for large complex problems. Nonlinear viscous free-surface flow com- putations are relatively new. Many of the difficulties such as large Reynolds numbers computations are common to flows without a free surface. On the other hand, problems such as those associated with the contact line, wave breaking, free-surface turbulence, and surfactants are unique to free-surface hydrodynam- ics and represent some of the difficult remaining challenges in computational fluid dynamics.