How grid quality affects

solution accuracy

J. Rhoads and T. Carrigan

Overview
Types of grid-induced errors
Flow alignment effects
Skewness effects
Grid type comparison
Potential problems
Non-orthogonality
Introduces misalignment
between face normal vector
and computed gradients
Affects Laplacian term
Error can be reduced by
computing gradient at CC
with CD and interpolating
Skewness
Introduces first order
interpolation error due to
offset of face center and
line between cell-centers
Affects convective term
Higher-order interpolation
is possible at cost of larger
computational molecule
Potential problems
Volume ratio Negative
Introduces artificial, non- Jacobian/volume
physical boundaries
Flattened cells
Inconsistent interpolation
errors can be problematic Extreme aspect ratios
Particularly troublesome Not point-matched
for LES (due to sub-grid
scale modeling)
Test case: Advection only (2D)

v
Test case: Details
ScalarTransportFoam
, with constant

Square domain
200 x 200 edge points (typ.)
Uniform velocity,
Tanh temperature profile applied on Inlet BC
E-folding length 20 cells*
Diffusion disabled ( )
Rotate about center of domain
Test effects of flow-alignment

Analytic solution
Solution across domain should match inlet temperature profile
Can compute Error,

* At this resolution,
cell interpolation error
0.03%.
Test case: Details
ddtSchemes deltaT chosen to keep
{
Co < 1
default Euler;
}
endTime set at > 20
... crossing times
divSchemes
{ Tried many different
default none; schemes
div(phi,T) Gauss limitedLinear 1;
}
All cases used schemes
... listed (unless specified)
interpolationSchemes
{ Advanced schemes?
default linear;
}
Just a baseline
Overview
Types of grid-induced errors
Flow alignment effects
Skewness effects
Grid type comparison
Baseline case
Cubic cells, aligned with the flow
Structured, = 20
Cubic cells
Structured rotation
Error propagation

Mixing process

Stretched cells
Sheared hexes
Stretched cells, = 20
Sheared hexes
Stretched cells, = 90
Sheared hexes
Stretched cells, = -20
Sheared hexes
Stretched cells, = -30
Sheared hexes
Stretched cells, = -60
Sheared hexes
Scan in rotation angle
Trig class
Perhaps easiest to see
with 20 case 0
Minimum errors occur when:
1. Adjacent cell-centers are
flow aligned
2. Diagonal cell-centers are -15
flow aligned
a. = -14.94
b. = -29.78
-20
Flow-averaged spacing of
cell centers across gradient
is effectively reduced when
corners are co-linear with -30
flow
Error is averaged out (no
mixing) due to lack of
stream-wise gradients
Overview
Types of grid-induced errors
Flow alignment effects
Skewness effects
Grid type comparison
Isolated skewness

Aligned diagonals Flipped diagonal

Isolated skewness
Right prismatic cells, with flip in direction
What about unstructured?

Delaunay Advancing Front

Can we quantify it?

Also:

Jacobian Component Volume

Edge Length Length Ratio (I,J,K)

Area Area Ratio

Volume Volume Ratio

Aspect Ratio Smoothness (I,J,K)

Min Included Max Included Angle

Angle
Equiangle Equiarea Skewness
Skewness
Equivolume Centroid Skewness
Skewness
Wall Spacing Wall Orthogonality

Unstructured comparison

Delaunay Advancing Front

* - Edge dimensions = 100

Unstructured comparison

Delaunay Advancing Front

* - Edge dimensions = 100

Unstructured comparison

Delaunay Advancing Front

* - Edge dimensions = 100

Skewness distribution
On the solver side
These effects can be somewhat reduced by
correcting on the solver side
divScheme: Gauss limitedLinear 1.0;
Worst case grid:
Skewness = 0.25
On the solver side
These effects can be somewhat reduced by
correcting on the solver side
divScheme: Gauss skewCorrected limitedLinear 1.0;
Worst case grid:
Skewness = 0.25
On the solver side
These effects can be somewhat reduced by
correcting on the solver side
divScheme: Gauss limitedLinear 1.0;
Diagonalized grid:
Skewness = 0.0
Overview
Types of grid-induced errors
Flow alignment effects
Skewness effects
Grid type comparison
Tabulated results
Takeaways
For convection terms, cell skewness ( ) plays
a large role in solution accuracy for a given
interpolation scheme
Centroid skew in Pointwise
Delaunay meshes are insensitive to flow
alignment, at the cost of overall higher errors
Advancing front (perfect-tri) meshes have certain
advantages
Orthogonal quads still reign supreme, particularly
in light of comparative cell counts
But sometimes introduce large errors when highly skewed
Future work
Diffusive test cases
Cell shear should have much larger effect
Diffusive + convective test cases
Eventually, turbulence modeling and wall
functions
Possibly implement higher-order schemes in OF
to test hypotheses
Supplemental
Ripple
Offset of 1 cell
Ripple, = 90
Offset of 1 cell
skewCorrected.H
...
tsfCorr().replace
(
cmpt,
scv() & linear
<
typename outerProduct
<
vector,
typename pTraits<Type>::cmptType
>::type
> (mesh).interpolate
(
fv::gaussGrad<typename pTraits<Type>::cmptType>
(mesh).grad(vf.component(cmpt))
)
);
...
Diagonalized
Right prismatic cells
Diagonalized, = 20
Right prismatic cells