Channels Flow Modeling by Using Isogeometric Analysis

In this paper, two types of flows are modeled using the Isogeometric Analysis (IA) method. The first problem is to find the velocity distribution of uniform flow in a sloped channel and the second is irrotational flow around circular and rectangular obstacles. The formulation is derived and its differences with the finite element (FE) method are explained. In the IA method, the unknown function of the governing differential equation and the domain boundaries are approximated by NURBS (Non-uniform Rational B-Splines). Due to the ability of NURBS in constructing curves and surfaces with high precision, channels with complicated boundaries can easily be considered. The IA results are compared with the standard finite element and the accuracy is demonstrated by several examples. Furthermore, the effect of some of the IA parameters such as the irregularity of the control point grid, different knot vectors and the number of control points are also discussed.