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Introduction to Cartesian Solver

The Cartesian solver within LAVA solves the compressible Navier-Stokes equations on blocks of cubic cells with Octree-type refinement. Objects embedded in the mesh are accounted for via a sharp immersed boundary ghost-cell method. The solver supports various numerical schemes and is geared toward performing wall-modeled large-eddy simulations (WMLES). A high-level overview of its capabilities compared to other LAVA solvers is provided in LAVA Introduction. Here is an overview of solver capabilities:

  • Automatic initial mesh generation based on user-defined surface and volume zones with target cell sizes
  • Automatic and on-the-fly error metric based adaptive mesh refinement
  • Sensor-based upwind/central blended low-dissipation interpolation scheme
  • Multi-species (non-reacting) capability
  • Multi-phase (non-reacting) capability
  • Constant coefficient Vreman subgrid scale model for LES closure
  • Musker's and blended-log wall models
  • Flow tripping via localized source terms
  • Actuator zone propulsion model
  • Custom force/moment integration groups
  • Solution sampling on cut planes, point clouds, lines or arbitrary triangulations
  • Iso-surface generation of primitive and derived flow quantities (e.g. Q-criterion, density gradient magnitude...) output as triangulated surfaces
  • Separate output of volume (parallel) and surface (buffered or parallel) solutions
  • Fluid-structure interaction with geometrically nonlinear shell and beam elements
  • Support for thin porous surfaces via Darcy-Forchheimer immersed boundary condition