An assessment of SPH simulations of sudden expansion/contraction 3-D channel flows

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate the application of smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) to the computation of 3-D flows in channels with sudden expansion or contraction. In the same context, we also discuss 2-D SPH computations applicable to channels characterized by cross-sections of large aspect ratios. The particle nature of SPH allows us to treat macro-systems similarly to atomic systems, transferring knowledge from molecular dynamics (MD) and dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) and suggesting a common framework for simulations at different scales. Computations are carried out by making use of tools previously used for atomic-scale systems (usually MD) and mesoscopic systems (usually DPD). The results obtained suggest that SPH captures the main flow characteristics and achieves good accuracy both in 2-D and 3-D, at least for Re values in the range 0.0177 to 55.4 investigated here. Minor numerical artifacts may be observed near the solid boundaries, especially at corner discontinuities. Such localized inaccuracies near points of geometric discontinuity are common in all numerical simulation methods. © 2021, OWZ.