A high-accuracy temporal–spatial pseudospectral method for time-periodic unsteady fluid flow and heat transfer problems

Abstract

A temporal–spatial pseudospectral (TSP) method is proposed for the high-accuracy solutions of time-periodic unsteady fluid flow and heat transfer problems. In this method, both the spatial and temporal derivative terms in the governing equations are computed by pseudospectral method. The spatial derivatives are computed through Chebyshev and Lagrange polynomials while the time derivatives are computed by Fourier series. The TSP method is capable of directly finding out the periodic state solutions without the necessity to resolve the initial transient state solutions, hence holds high computational efficiency and high numerical accuracy properties for the time-periodic problems. This method is validated by three 2D benchmark problems: the time-periodic incompressible flow with exact solutions; the natural convection in enclosure with time-periodic temperature on one sidewall, and on both sidewalls. The TSP results fit well the exact solutions or the benchmark solutions and the TSP accuracy is much higher than the time marching spatial pseudospectral accuracy. Some time-dependent fluid flow and heat transfer characteristic parameters are analysed. The proposed TSP method could be further extended to more complex time-periodic unsteady fluid flow and heat transfer problems where high-accuracy results are required.