Fluid Simulation on Surfaces

Maria Andrade, Leonardo Carvalho, Dalia Bonilla

In this work, we show how to calculate the Navier-Stokes equations on a smooth surface, where we want to simulate a fluid flow. We used a parametrization of a Catmull-Clark surface, from which we calculate a metric that depends on its tangent vectors and use this metric to get the necessary differential operators to solve the problem. The Navier-Stokes equations are solved on a discretization of the surface, dealing with the transition of the fluid between the patches that form the surface. This work is based in the work of Jos Stam.

Example: Simulation of fluid on a closed surface.

To simulate fluid we need to get a parametrization of some surface, one good candidate is a Catmull-Clark surface, which is smooth almost everywhere. Moreover, it is necessary to compare vectors in different points on the surface for fluid simulators, for example, velocity, force, etc.

The Navier-Stokes equations on a smooth surface are
$\begin{eqnarray*} \left\{ \begin{array}{cccc} \displaystyle{\frac{\partial{\bf u... ...\cdot \nabla)\rho+\kappa\nabla^2\rho+\it {S}, \end{array}\right. \end{eqnarray*}$

where

${\bf u}=(u^{1},u^{2})$ is the fluid's velocity;
$\nu$ is the viscosity;
${\bf f}=(f^{1},f^{2})$ are external forces;
$\rho$ is the fluid's density;
$\kappa$ is a diffusion rate;
$\it {S}$ are sources of density.

We used a parametrization of the Catmull-Clark subdivision surface, as described by Jos Stam, 1998, where the surface is divided into patches, as you can see in this example:

Surface divided into patches. The colors indicate the coordinate system of each patch.

From this parametrization

we calculate the metric matrix defined by

The inverse of the metric matrix is

And we denote the determinant of the metric matrix

The equations are solved in four steps:

Addition of forces

First, we solve this equation

which is discretized by

So we just sum the values of the external forces to the current velocity.

Forces added to a velocity field on the surface.

Diffusion

Now, we solve the diffusion equation

which is discretized by

where the Laplacian operator is given by

Result of a diffusion step.

Advection

The advection equation is given by

where the gradient operator is given by

which is solved using a semi-Lagrangian technique, where we calculate the trajectory of each point of the grid to get its velocity in the previous time.

Projection

The result of the last step is projected

such that

where the divergent is given by

To find this projection we solve the Poisson equation

followed by