2019/01/16 by Benjamin K Tapley, Tapley, Benjamin K
Physics and Astronomy · #Computational Physics (physics.comp-ph) #FOS: Physical sciences #physics.comp-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1901.05236
arxiv created 2019/01/16 · arxiv updated 2019/01/17
We present an novel algorithm for tracking massless solid particles in a divergence-free velocity field that is only available at discrete points in space and time such as those arising from a direct numerical simulation of Navier-Stokes. The algorithm creates a divergence-free approximation to the numerical field using matrix valued radial basis functions, which is integrated in time using a volume-preserving map. The resulting method is able to calculate accurate trajectories in a helical vortex using much larger step-sizes and a far lower number of interpolation points which results in a more efficient algorithm compared to a conventional scheme.