Proposition research project Ense3: Simulation evolution of a denser region with Coriofoam and Fluidsim

Context and objectives

Last year, we worked with 5 students of ENSE3 on the development of an OpenFOAM solvers to simulate flows in the Coriolis platform, the big rotating tank of the LEGI laboratory. This work produces a solver (see the repository and the documentation). We learned how to use OpenFoam to solve the Navier-Stokes equations under the Boussinesq approximation in a cylindrical geometry. We are now ready to address more difficult problems, i.e. to simulate real flows studied in the Coriolis platform.

For this research project, we propose to simulate the evolution of a blob of denser fluid initially at rest at the center of the Coriolis platform when the Coriolis platform in rotating. This configuration is interesting because:

  • it can be studied experimentally so we can compare our results to experimental results.
  • the initial state and the short-term dynamics are conceptually quite simple.
  • the long-term dynamics is potentially very interesting. It involves complicated instabilities and turbulence, in particular for moderate rotation rate.
  • the dynamic is not dominated by the boundary layers, so we should be able to reproduce the main characteristic of the flows with simulations at moderate resolution.

Description of the work

We propose to simulate this flow with the solver Coriofoam and with an efficient pseudo-spectral code written mainly in Python, fluidsim in order to validate the two solvers and to study different aspects of the physical problem.

The students will have to setup the simulations and carry them out on the LEGI clusters. They will have to visualize and postprocess the data with Paraview and Python.

The students will learn a lot on numerical simulations of turbulent flows and on great tools widely used in research and industry: OpenFoam, Linux and Python.

Supervisory staff

Students will be supervised by Cyrille Bonamy (Ingénieur de Recherche Calcul at LEGI) and Pierre Augier (Chargé de Recherche specialist in stratified and rotating turbulence). Depending on the participants of the project, we will communicate in English or/and in French.