RANS solvers with adaptive structured boundary non-conforming grids

The objective of the present work is to develop robust RANS solvers for accurate computation of flow and heat transfer in complex geometries, such as arise in engineering design. In CFD analysis, the most time-consuming process is often the generation of an acceptable grid — whether it is a boundary-conforming, curvilinear mesh, or even a completely unstructured mesh. The present work focuses mainly on RANS solution of viscous and turbulent flows, where the relevant governing equations always impose strict requirements on the grid and on the solution algorithm. The special problems that arise in RANS solvers, coupled to turbulence models, have not been addressed in the literature on locally refined, Cartesian meshes, or in papers on the use of boundary non-conforming grids. The ideal would be to develop a RANS code, with advanced turbulence models, that can perform flow and heat transfer analysis directly on the CAD representation of a surface, avoiding the cumbersome process of surface meshing. Such a development would have the potential for an enormous impact on applied computational analysis. The present research aims to exploring promising avenues in this direction.