Hossein (Aria) Seyedzadeh

Hossein (Aria) Seyedzadeh

Research assistant | PhD candidate | Civil Engineering | Stony Brook University

VFS Geophysics: Solver Development, Debugging, Enhancement, and Validation

VFS-Geophysics: Open-Source CFD Solver Development and Enhancement

VFS-Geophysics CFD Solver

Background

  • Project: Contributor to the open-source Virtual Flow Simulator (VFS-Geophysics) CFD solver
  • VFS Wind has been extensively used for wind and environmental applications. The project has contributed to development, enhancement, and debugging this tool to build a comprehensive tool for marine and environmental simulation to contribute to Atlantic Marine Energy Center (AMEC) projects.
  • VFS-Geophysics is a high-performance computational fluid dynamics solver specifically designed for geophysical flow applications including wind, tidal, environmental, and biological flow modeling.
  • Key development areas: solver optimization, numerical methods enhancement, debugging complex flow physics, validation against experimental data, and performance benchmarking for AMEC research initiatives.

Development Challenges

  • Extending VFS Wind capabilities from wind-focused applications to comprehensive marine energy simulations for AMEC projects.
  • Implementation of advanced turbulence models and large-eddy simulation (LES) capabilities for geophysical flows.
  • Optimization of parallel computing performance and scalability on high-performance computing systems.
  • Development of robust numerical schemes for complex geometries using immersed boundary methods.
  • Integration of multiple physics modules including sediment transport, fish-turbine interaction, and wave dynamics for marine applications.
  • Ensuring code reliability and accuracy through comprehensive validation and verification studies for AMEC research requirements.

Contributions to VFS-Wind/VFS-Geophysics

  • Enhancement and extension of VFS Wind solver capabilities for marine energy applications supporting AMEC research objectives.
  • Wave and Current Modeling Capabilities: Implementation of advanced wave-current interaction models for realistic marine environment simulations.
  • Control Co-design Algorithms: Development of collective pitch control and individual pitch control algorithms for optimized turbine performance.
  • Blade Hydroelasticity Modeling: Implementation of blade structural dynamics and its coupling to flow solver, hydrodynamics solver, and control algorithms for comprehensive fluid-structure interaction analysis.
  • Sediment Transport Simulation: Enhancement of sediment transport capabilities using Eulerian-Lagrangian coupling frameworks for environmental impact assessment.
  • Lagrangian Particle Tracking: Development of advanced particle tracking algorithms for studying fish behavior, sediment dynamics, and pollutant dispersion.
  • Synthetic Turbulence Generator Model: Implementation of synthetic turbulence generation capabilities to replicate realistic turbulence modeling for improved flow field initialization and boundary conditions.
  • Data Analysis and Automated Workflows: Development of comprehensive modules for data analysis and pre/post processing automated workflows using Python and MATLAB for enhanced research productivity and reproducible results.
  • Debugging and optimization of memory management and computational efficiency in parallel environments.
  • Validation studies comparing solver predictions with experimental and field measurement data for AMEC projects.
  • Documentation and testing framework development for improved code maintainability and community adoption.

Technical Environment

  • Computing: High-performance computing clusters with MPI parallelization
  • Programming: C/C++, MATLAB, Python, Bash scripting
  • Version Control: Git, GitHub collaboration workflows
  • Build Systems: CMake, Makefiles, module environments
  • Libraries: PETSc, MPI, BLAS/LAPACK
  • Visualization: ParaView, VisIt, Tecplot for result analysis

This work contributes to the advancement of open-source computational fluid dynamics tools for geophysical applications, enabling researchers worldwide to access high-performance CFD capabilities for environmental and renewable energy studies. The enhancement of VFS Wind into a comprehensive marine simulation tool directly supports Atlantic Marine Energy Center (AMEC) research initiatives and advances sustainable marine energy development.