Numerical simulation of tornado flows using anisotropic mesh adaptation

Resumo

A numerical model for tornado flow simulation is proposed in this work, where Adaptive Mesh
Refinement (AMR) techniques are utilized. Owing to the increase observed in the annual occurrence of storms
with tornado formation, investigations on tornado flow characteristics and its effects on buildings and structures
are required. In this sense, a numerical algorithm based on the explicit Characteristic-Based Split (CBS) scheme
is adopted to solve the system of flow equations, where four-node tetrahedral finite elements are employed in the
spatial discretization procedures. An anisotropic mesh adaptation scheme based on Riemannian metric is coupled
to the flow solver in order to capture high flow variable gradients in the tornado vortex region. Tornado flow
fields are simulated here using numerical modeling of tornado experimental simulators and results obtained with
the present model are compared with predictions presented by other authors in order to evaluate the influence of
mesh adaptation on the accuracy of the numerical results.