A finite volume method on distorted quadrilateral meshes for discretization of the energy equation's conduction term

Abstract

AbstractA finite volume method (FVM) on distorted meshes for discretizing the energy equation's conduction term is presented. In this method, it is possible to compose the computational mesh of general quadrilateral elements (cells), namely, the cells are not required to be rectangular. The gradient of temperature on the cell's surface is computed to be second‐order accurate. Therefore, the error of numerical results by this method is smaller than using the traditional multilateral element method (MEM). The error does not depend on the degree of mesh distortion. The formulation based only on Taylor's theorem is straightforward. These are advantageous features to revise the fluid flow computation programs (based on FVM) that neglected the heat conduction term of the energy equation. The test calculations show that the convergence tendency of the numerical error using this method with the distorted mesh is the same as using an ordinary 2‐node central difference scheme on a constant‐interval rectangular mesh. By this method a conduction term was added to the energy equation of a SALE [1] program which had neglected that term originally, and z numerical calculation of a fluid flow with a heat transfer problem was performed. The numerical result of the present method with the distorted mesh well agrees with the analytical solution and the result of REM with a rectangular mesh. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Heat Trans Asian Res; Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/htj). DOI 10.1002/htj.20375