Finite difference method

Abstract: A coupled system of two singularly perturbed linear reaction-diffusion two-point boundary value problems is examined. The leading term of each equation is multiplied by a small positive parameter, but these parameters may have different magnitudes. The solutions to the system have boundary layers that overlap and interact. The structure of these layers is analysed, and this leads to the construction of a piecewise-uniform mesh that is a variant of the usual Shishkin mesh. On this mesh central differencing is proved to be almost first-order accurate, uniformly in both small parameters. Supporting numerical results are presented for a test problem.

Abstract: The immersed boundary method is an approach to fluid-structure interaction that uses a Lagrangian description of the structural deformations, stresses, and forces along with an Eulerian description of the momentum, viscosity, and incompressibility of the fluid-structure system. The original immersed boundary methods described immersed elastic structures using systems of flexible fibers, and even now, most immersed boundary methods still require Lagrangian meshes that are finer than the Eulerian grid. This work introduces a coupling scheme for the immersed boundary method to link the Lagrangian and Eulerian variables that facilitates independent spatial discretizations for the structure and background grid. This approach uses a finite element discretization of the structure while retaining a finite difference scheme for the Eulerian variables. We apply this method to benchmark problems involving elastic, rigid, and actively contracting structures, including an idealized model of the left ventricle of the heart. Our tests include cases in which, for a fixed Eulerian grid spacing, coarser Lagrangian structural meshes yield discretization errors that are as much as several orders of magnitude smaller than errors obtained using finer structural meshes. The Lagrangian-Eulerian coupling approach developed in this work enables the effective use of these coarse structural meshes with the immersed boundary method. This work also contrasts two different weak forms of the equations, one of which is demonstrated to be more effective for the coarse structural discretizations facilitated by our coupling approach.

Abstract: A finite difference scheme using a modified marker-and-cell (MAC) method is applied to investigate the characteristics of non-linear wave motions and their interactions with a stationary three-dimensional body inside a numerical wave tank (NWT). The Navier-Stokes (NS) equation is solved for two fluid layers, and the boundary values are updated at each time step by a finite difference time marching scheme in the frame of a rectangular co-ordinate system. The viscous stresses and surface tension are neglected in the dynamic free-surface condition, and the fully non-linear kinematic free-surface condition is satisfied by the density function method developed for two fluid layers. The incident waves are generated from the inflow boundary by prescribing a velocity profile resembling flexible flap wavemaker motions, and the outgoing waves are numerically dissipated inside an artificial damping zone located at the end of the tank. The present NS-MAC NWT simulations for a vertical truncated circular cylinder inside a rectangular wave tank are compared with the experimental results of Mercier and Niedzwecki, an independently developed potential-based fully non-linear NWT, and the second-order diffraction computation