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Parallel domain decomposition method for finite element approximation of 3D steady state non‐Newtonian fluids
Author(s) -
Shiu WenShin,
Hwang FengNan,
Cai XiaoChuan
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
international journal for numerical methods in fluids
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.938
H-Index - 112
eISSN - 1097-0363
pISSN - 0271-2091
DOI - 10.1002/fld.4027
Subject(s) - finite element method , domain decomposition methods , mathematics , newtonian fluid , discretization , non newtonian fluid , power law fluid , pressure correction method , nonlinear system , mathematical analysis , mechanics , physics , thermodynamics , quantum mechanics
Summary We introduce a stabilized finite element method for the 3D non‐Newtonian Navier–Stokes equations and a parallel domain decomposition method for solving the sparse system of nonlinear equations arising from the discretization. Non‐Newtonian flow problems are, generally speaking, more challenging than Newtonian flows because the nonlinearities are not only in the convection term but also in the viscosity term, which depends on the shear rate. Many good iterative methods and preconditioning techniques that work well for the Newtonian flows do not work well for the non‐Newtonian flows. We employ a Galerkin/least squares finite element method, with stabilization parameters adjusted to count the non‐Newtonian effect, to discretize the equations, and the resulting highly nonlinear system of equations is solved by a Newton–Krylov–Schwarz algorithm. In this study, we apply the proposed method to some inelastic power‐law fluid flows through the eccentric annuli with inner cylinder rotation and investigate the robustness of the method with respect to some physical parameters, including the power‐law index and the Reynolds number ratios. We then report the superlinear speedup achieved by the domain decomposition algorithm on a computer with up to 512 processors. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.