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Theoretical development for DSMC local time stepping technique

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Abstract

The direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method is the most mature and wildly used approach for nonequilibrium gas flow simulation. The phenomenological nature of this method brings flexibility to the computation algorithms. In this study, the theoretical foundations to decouple the molecular motion and collision within a time step are discussed in detail, which can be treated as criterions for the DSMC algorithms. Based on the theoretical developments, an improved local time stepping scheme is proposed, which specifies the movement time attribute and the collision time attribute for each representative particle. A free flow about a sphere body is considered as an example, which is compared with the calculations using the published local time stepping technique. The results show that the improved local time scheme is valid and is promising in realizing flow structures with strong variations.

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Correspondence to GuoBiao Cai.

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Cai, G., Su, W. & Hou, F. Theoretical development for DSMC local time stepping technique. Sci. China Technol. Sci. 55, 2750–2756 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11431-012-4913-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11431-012-4913-7

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