Minimum Wall Distance Computations With Time-Dependent Geometry for CFD

This paper presents an efficient and scalable method to calculate the minimum wall distance (MWD), which is necessary for the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) turbulence models. The MWD is described by the distance field function which is essentially a partial differential equation (PDE). The PDE is a type of convection-diffusion equation and can be solved by existing computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes with minor modifications. Parallel computations for the PDE are conducted to study its efficiency and scalability. Encouraging results are obtained and demonstrate the present method is more efficient than all the alternate methods.