Lagrangian Differencing Dynamics for Time-Independent Non-Newtonian Materials

This paper introduces a novel meshless and Lagrangian approach for simulating non-Newtonian flows, named Lagrangian Differencing Dynamics (LDD). Second-order-consistent spatial operators are used to directly discretize and solve generalized Navier-Stokes equations in a strong formulation. The solution is obtained using a split-step scheme, i.e., by decoupling the solutions of the pressure and velocity. The pressure is obtained by solving a Poisson equation, and the velocity is solved in a semi-implicit formulation. The matrix-free solution to the equations, and Lagrangian advection of mesh-free nodes allowed for a fully parallelized implementation on the CPU and GPU, which ensured an affordable computing time and large time steps. A set of four benchmarks are presented to demonstrate the robustness and accuracy of the proposed formulation. The tested two- and three-dimensional simulations used Power Law, Casson and Bingham models. An Abram slump test and a dam break test were performed using the Bingham model, yielding visual and numerical results in accordance with the experimental data. A square lid-driven cavity was tested using the Casson model, while the Power Law model was used for a skewed lid-driven cavity test. The simulation results of the lid-driven cavity tests are in good agreement with velocity profiles and stream lines of published reports. A fully implicit scheme will be introduced in future work. As the method precisely reproduces the pressure field, non-Newtonian models that strongly depend on the pressure will be validated.