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A Decade of Volume-Of-Solid Immersed Boundary Solvers: Lessons Learnt and the Road Ahead

  • Review Article
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Journal of the Indian Institute of Science Aims and scope

Abstract

This review article traces the development of the Volume-Of-Solid immersed boundary method, referred to as VOS-IB, over the last decade. Starting from its simple beginnings inspired by the Volume-Of-Fluid method in multiphase flow, we discuss the evolution of this technique and its extensions for problems in Boussinesq and non-Boussinesq flows, conjugate heat transfer, multi-fluid flows, fluid–structure interactions, and turbulent flows. A critical assessment of the strengths and limitations of the VOS-IB technique is presented and possible directions for future research, both in terms of development of the method and its applications, are outlined.

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Notes

  1. Immersed Boundary Method: A technique to solve stationary and moving body problems on non-conforming meshes, usually Cartesian meshes that can be generated with ease.

  2. Navier–Stokes equations: The partial differential equations arising from the laws of conservation of mass, momentum, and energy applied to fluid flows.

  3. Collocated frameworks: A solution approach where the unknowns are all stored or “co-located” at the same location in a control volume.

  4. Mach number: A dimensionless number of interest for high-speed flows and describes the ratio of the speed of fluid flow to that of sound in the medium. While flows with values of Mach number lesser than 0.3 can be reasonably approximated as being incompressible, compressibility can play a role even in these conditions when there are large temperature differences.

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Acknowledgements

This review article is a culmination of efforts of research scholars who worked with the last author and the authors would like to express their gratitude to Dr. Jitendra Patel, Dr. Mukesh Kumar, and Dr. Sambit Majumder for their efforts. The fruitful discussions on the immersed boundary approach and VOS-IB methodology in particular, with Dr. Arnab Kumar De has been instrumental in its development and diversified applications and the collaboration with Dr. Dipanakar Narayan Basu on the closely related PSC approach are gratefully acknowledged. The last author would also like to acknowledge the support from SERB-MATRICS under Grant No. MTR/2019/000241 during the course of the preparation of this review article, which is dedicated to the loving memory of Dr. Annem Narayan Reddy who was a close friend and colleague of the last author and his collaborators.

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Correspondence to Ganesh Natarajan.

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Deka, M., Chandran, K. & Natarajan, G. A Decade of Volume-Of-Solid Immersed Boundary Solvers: Lessons Learnt and the Road Ahead. J Indian Inst Sci (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41745-024-00429-5

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