A statistical boundary for 3D rarefied flows through meshes: implementation to a new version of dsmcFoam+ and wind tunnel validation

Abstract

AbstractThe Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method has become a standard tool for rarefied aerodynamics and microchannel flows. However, the performance benefits of DSMC, such as adaptive grid sizes and number of particles, are constrained by the need to resolve small geometric details of mesh applications within relatively large simulation volumes. The requirement for a sufficient number of particles in even the smallest cells imposes a significant computational burden. A novel set of cyclic statistical boundary conditions is proposed to address the computational bottleneck associated with simulating micrometre-scale structures prevalent in atmospheric and space research under rarefied flow conditions. These conditions account for the geometric parameters of a geometric mesh and the angular dependency of impacting particles, aiming to alleviate the computational challenges posed by conventional approaches. Validation against wind tunnel measurements demonstrates excellent agreement for one of the implemented boundaries, able to simulate fine meshes for conditions of rocket soundings in the Mesosphere. The newly developed boundary conditions are implemented within the advanced DSMC solver, dsmcFoam+ framework. For this study, the solver is ported from OpenFOAM® version 2.4.0 to the OpenFOAM® version v2306 to leverage recent code developments, particularly in dynamic meshes, load balancing, and barycentric particle tracking. This advancement enhances the capabilities of DSMC simulations, offering improved fidelity and accuracy in capturing rarefied flow phenomena.