Flow feature aligned grid adaptation

A flow feature aligned grid adaptation method is proposed for the solution of Euler and Navier–Stokes equations for compressible flows, motivated by the desire for an efficient grid system for an accurate and robust solution method to best resolve flow features of interest. The method includes extraction of the flow features; generation of the embedded flow feature aligned structured blocks combined with unstructured grid generation for the rest of the flowfield; and adaptation of the hybrid grid for high flow feature resolution. The feature alignment makes it possible to maintain the high resolution property for both shock waves and shear layers of the approximate Riemann solvers and the higher order reconstruction schemes based on one-dimensional derivation and dimensional splitting. High grid efficiency is obtained with highly anisotropic directional grid corresponding to the feature directions. The computational procedure is described in details in the paper and its application to flow solutions involving shock waves, boundary layers, wakes and shock boundary layer interaction are demonstrated. Its accuracy, efficiency and robustness are discussed in comparison with an anisotropic unstructured grid adaptations for the shock boundary layer interaction case