arXiv subjects

Gennaro Coppola

Publications and source records attributed to Gennaro Coppola.

11 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Pressure-equilibrium-preserving and fully conservative discretization of compressible flow equations for real and thermally perfect gases

Numerical simulations of compressible real-fluid flows are notoriously plagued by spurious pressure oscillations arising in regions of abrupt flow variations. As a possible remedy, several numerical formulations enforce the pressure equilibrium condition for the compressible Euler equations, typically at the cost of spoiling the correct conservation of total energy or by overspecifying the thermodynamical variables. This study proposes for the first time a numerical discretization procedure which is able to discretely preserve the full conservation of the linear invariants (mass, momentum and total energy) and to exactly enforce the pressure equilibrium condition. The method also preserves the conservation of kinetic energy by convection, and is based on the specification of nonlinear numerical fluxes for mass and internal energy which depend on the details of the equation of state. Both thermally perfect and real gases with an arbitrary equation of state are considered, and a simplified approximate pressure equilibrium preserving formulation with excellent performances is also proposed. The effectiveness of the novel formulations is assessed through a series of numerical simulations in supercritical and transcritical conditions with some of the most popular cubic equations of state.

physics.flu-dyn↗

arXiv2026

Formulation of entropy-conservative discretizations for compressible flows of thermally perfect gases

This study proposes a novel spatial discretization procedure for the compressible Euler equations that guarantees entropy conservation at a discrete level for thermally perfect gases. The procedure is based on a locally conservative formulation, and extends the entropy-conserving schemes to the more realistic case of thermally perfect gases, while still guaranteeing preservation of both linear invariants and kinetic energy. The proposed methodology, which can also be extended to multicomponent gases and to an Asymptotically Entropy-Conservative formulation, shows advantages in terms of accuracy and robustness when compared to existing similar approaches.

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arXiv2026

Impact of Structure-Preserving Discretizations on Compressible Wall-Bounded Turbulence of Thermally Perfect Gases

Direct numerical simulations of compressible turbulent channel flow at supersonic and hypersonic Mach numbers are performed using a thermally perfect gas model for CO$_2$. The objective is to assess the role of structure-preserving discretizations of the convective terms in high-enthalpy regimes, with particular emphasis on entropy conservation, kinetic-energy preservation, and consistency with the thermodynamic closure. The comparative analysis of various formulations examines their impact on robustness, thermodynamic fluctuations, and turbulence statistics across a range of Mach numbers. Differences among formulations are found to originate primarily in the treatment of thermodynamic variables and progressively influence the dynamical fields as compressibility effects intensify. In particular, the coupling between entropy consistency and pressure discretization is shown to affect Reynolds stresses and mean flow properties in high-speed regimes. Overall, the results indicate that consistency between the numerical formulation and the thermodynamic model contributes significantly to the reliable simulation of high-enthalpy compressible turbulence. The study systematically assesses entropy-conservative discretizations for thermally perfect gases in wall-bounded flows and examines their impact on thermodynamic-dynamic coupling at high Mach numbers.

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arXiv2025

Entropy conservative discretization of compressible Euler equations with an arbitrary equation of state

This study proposes a novel spatial discretization procedure for the compressible Euler equations which guarantees entropy conservation at a discrete level when an arbitrary equation of state is assumed. The proposed method, based on a locally-conservative discretization, guarantees also the spatial conservation of mass, momentum, and total energy and is kinetic energy-preserving. In order to achieve the entropy-conservation property for an arbitrary non-ideal gas, a general strategy is adopted based on the manipulation of discrete balance equations through the imposition of global entropy conservation and the use of a summation by parts rule. The procedure, which is extended to an arbitrary order of accuracy, conducts to a general form of the internal-energy numerical flux which results in a nonlinear function of thermodynamic and dynamic variables and still admits the mass flux as a residual degree of freedom. The effectiveness of the novel entropy-conservative formulation is demonstrated through numerical tests making use of some of the most popular cubic equations of state.

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arXiv2025

Finite-difference compatible entropy-conserving schemes for the compressible Euler equations

This paper introduces a family of entropy-conserving finite-difference discretizations for the compressible flow equations. In addition to conserving the primary quantities of mass, momentum, and total energy, the methods also preserve kinetic energy and pressure equilibrium. The schemes are based on finite-difference (FD) representations of the logarithmic mean, establishing and leveraging a broader link between linear and nonlinear two-point averages and FD forms. The schemes are locally conservative due to the summation-by-parts property and therefore admit a local flux form, making them applicable also in finite-volume and finite-element settings. The effectiveness of these schemes is validated through various test cases (1D Sod shock tube, 1D density wave, 2D isentropic vortex, 3D Taylor-Green vortex) that demonstrate exact conservation of entropy along with conservation of the primary quantities and preservation of pressure equilibrium.

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arXiv2024

On the performances of standard and kinetic energy preserving time-integration methods for incompressible-flow simulations

The effects of kinetic-energy preservation errors due to Runge-Kutta (RK) temporal integrators have been analyzed for the case of large-eddy simulations of incompressible turbulent channel flow. Simulations have been run using the open-source solver Xcompact3D with an implicit spectral vanishing viscosity model and a variety of temporal Runge-Kutta integrators. Explicit pseudo-symplectic schemes, with improved energy preservation properties, have been compared to standard RK methods. The results show a marked decrease in the temporal error for higher-order pseudo-symplectic methods; on the other hand, an analysis of the energy spectra indicates that the dissipation introduced by the commonly used three-stage RK scheme can lead to significant distortion of the energy distribution within the inertial range. A cost-vs-accuracy analysis suggests that pseudo-symplectic schemes could be used to attain results comparable to traditional methods at a reduced computational cost.

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arXiv2024

Novel Pressure-Equilibrium and Kinetic-Energy Preserving fluxes for compressible flows based on the harmonic mean

Employing physically-consistent numerical methods is an important step towards attaining robust and accurate numerical simulations. When addressing compressible flows, in addition to preserving kinetic energy at a discrete level, as done in the incompressible case, additional properties are sought after, such as the ability to preserve the equilibrium of pressure that can be found at contact interfaces. This paper investigates the general conditions of the spatial numerical discretizations to achieve the pressure equilibrium preserving property (PEP). Schemes from the literature are analyzed in this respect, and procedures to impart the PEP property to existing discretizations are proposed. Additionally, new PEP numerical schemes are introduced through minor modifications of classical ones. Numerical tests confirmed the theory hereby presented and showed that the modifications, beyond the enforcement of the PEP property, have a generally positive impact on the performances of the original schemes.

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arXiv2023

Asymptotically entropy-conservative and kinetic-energy preserving numerical fluxes for compressible Euler equations

This paper proposes a hierarchy of numerical fluxes for the compressible flow equations which are kinetic-energy and pressure equilibrium preserving and asymptotically entropy conservative, i.e., they are able to arbitrarily reduce the numerical error on entropy production due to the spatial discretization. The fluxes are based on the use of the harmonic mean for internal energy and only use algebraic operations, making them less computationally expensive than the entropy-conserving fluxes based on the logarithmic mean. The use of the geometric mean is also explored and identified to be well-suited to reduce errors on entropy evolution. Results of numerical tests confirmed the theoretical predictions and the entropy-conserving capabilities of a selection of schemes have been compared.

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arXiv2022

Numerical treatment of the energy equation in compressible flows simulations

We analyze the conservation properties of various discretizations of the system of compressible Euler equations for shock-free flows, with special focus on the treatment of the energy equation and on the induced discrete equations for other thermodynamic quantities. The analysis is conducted both theoretically and numerically and considers two important factors characterizing the various formulations, namely the choice of the energy equation and the splitting used in the discretization of the convective terms. The energy equations analyzed are total and internal energy, total enthalpy, pressure, speed of sound and entropy. In all the cases examined the discretization of the convective terms is made with locally conservative and kinetic-energy preserving schemes. Some important relations between the various formulations are highlighted and the performances of the various schemes are assessed by considering two widely used test cases. Together with some popular formulations from the literature, also new and potentially useful ones are analyzed.

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arXiv2022

Global and local conservation of mass, momentum and kinetic energy in the simulation of compressible flow

The spatial discretization of convective terms in compressible flow equations is studied from an abstract viewpoint, for finite-difference methods and finite-volume type formulations with cell-centered numerical fluxes. General conditions are sought for the local and global conservation of primary (mass and momentum) and secondary (kinetic energy) invariants on Cartesian meshes. The analysis, based on a matrix approach, shows that sharp criteria for global and local conservation can be obtained and that in many cases these two concepts are equivalent. Explicit numerical fluxes are derived in all finite-difference formulations for which global conservation is guaranteed, even for non-uniform Cartesian meshes. The treatment reveals also an intimate relation between conservative finite-difference formulations and cell-centered finite-volume type approaches. This analogy suggests the design of wider classes of finite-difference discretizations locally preserving primary and secondary invariants.

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arXiv2018

Numerically stable formulations of convective terms for turbulent compressible flows

A systematic analysis of the discrete conservation properties of non-dissipative, central-difference approximations of the compressible Navier-Stokes equations is reported. A general triple splitting of the nonlinear convective terms is considered, and energy-preserving formulations are fully characterized by deriving a two-parameter family of split forms. Previously developed formulations reported in literature are shown to be particular members of this family; novel splittings are introduced and discussed as well. Furthermore, the conservation properties yielded by different choices for the energy equation (i.e. total and internal energy, entropy) are analyzed thoroughly. It is shown that additional preserved quantities can be obtained through a suitable adaptive selection of the split form within the derived family. Local conservation of primary invariants, which is a fundamental property to build high-fidelity shock-capturing methods, is also discussed in the paper. Numerical tests performed for the Taylor-Green Vortex at zero viscosity fully confirm the theoretical findings, and show that a careful choice of both the splitting and the energy formulation can provide remarkably robust and accurate results.

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