Numerical simulation of shock-box interaction using an adaptive finite element scheme

Abstract

A transient two-dimensional, finite elemnt shock capturing scheme on unstructured grids was applied to the study of a shock interacting with a box suspended above a rigid elevated surface. The area between the box and the surface was partially blocked by the box support beams, resulting in complex shock diffraction processes. The results demonstrate the capability of the developed adaptive refinement/corsening algorithm to properly adapt to weak shocks, expansions, and contact discontinuities, and highlight the resulting excellent resolution of the captured flow features. In addition to interesting shock diffraction and propagation phenomena, the results demonstrate the capability of the new code to capture, and define in great detail, vortex sheets shed from sharp corners. We show that the baroclinic effect, an inviscid process, controls the shedding phenomenon during the diffraction phase. Hence, the Eulerian model is able to correctly predict the process.