A Lagrangian vorticity collocation method for viscous, axisymmetric flows with and without swirl (Q1383013)

The authors perform the velocity calculation by using a representation of the vorticity field in terms of Gaussian vortex rings at off-center points and Gaussian vortex blobs along the axis of symmetry. The matrix equation is solved by an iterative procedure which filters out ``noise'' in the element amplitudes. Viscous diffusion is treated with use of a diffusion velocity method. Derivatives are obtained by locally fitting a polynomial function to control points via a least squares formulation and then differentiating the polynomial. The method is found to maintain high accuracy and can also be used in three-dimensional vortex methods.