Numerical solvers for flows through porous media

A general purpose parallel multi-dimensional FV solver for the simulation of unsteady compressible reacting flows through thin porous media layers is included in the libICE library.

The Darcy pressure drop has been defined as a surface property, that has been included both in the Navier-Stokes equations and in the energy equation, in order to account for the heat transfer between the porous wall and the flow.

Pressure drop across the porous medium and friction between the flow and the porous wall are computed by means of the physical normal components resulting from the velocity expansion in the unit orthogonal vector basis.
The new developed solver makes use of a a pseudo-staggered arrangement, in order to preserve sharp value changes in pressure and velocity fields across porous walls. The method mimics the operation of a solution procedure devised for a staggered variable arrangement, but it keeps the collocated variables.


Stability tests show that pressure correction equation is able to achieve fast convergence at very low permeability of the medium, also when it is associated with grid non-orthogonality.

Selected publications:
1 - F. Piscaglia, A. Montorfano, and A. Onorati. "Multi-dimensional computation of compressible reacting gas flows through porous media to apply to ICE simulation", at the XI Jornadas im2 - Mathematical Models in Medicine, Business & Engineering, Sept 8-11, 2009, Valencia (Spain). Work selected for submission to "Mathematical and Computer Modelling" (Elsevier).
2 - F. Piscaglia, A. Montorfano, and A. Onorati. "Development of a multi-dimensional parallel solver for full-scale dpf modeling in OpenFOAM".
SAE paper n. 2009-01-1965, SAE 2009 International Powertrains, Fuels and Lubricants Meeting, June 15-17, 2009, Florence, Italy.
3 - F. Piscaglia, A. Onorati, C. J. Rutland, and D. E. Foster. Multi-dimensional modeling of the soot deposition mechanism in diesel particulate filters. In SAE Transactions, Journal of Fuel & Lubricants, SAE paper n. 2008-01-0444, SAE Int. Congress & Exp. (Detroit, Michigan), 2009.
4 F. Piscaglia, C.J. Rutland, D. E. Foster.“Development of a CFD Model to Study the Hydrodynamic Characteristics and the Soot Deposition Mechanism on the Porous Wall of a Diesel Particulate Filter”. SAE Int. Congress & Exp. (Detroit, Michigan) 2005. Paper n. 2005-01-0963, April 11-14, Detroit (MI),2005.