A stable second-order mass-weighted upwind scheme for unstructured meshes

Abstract

In this paper, an original second-order upwind scheme for convection terms is described and implemented in the context of a Control-Volume Finite-Element Method (CVFEM). The proposed scheme is a second-order extension of the first-order MAss-Weighted upwind (MAW) scheme proposed by Saabas and Baliga (Numer. Heat Transfer 1994; 26B:381–407). The proposed second-order scheme inherits the well-known stability characteristics of the MAW scheme, but exhibits less artificial viscosity and ensures much higher accuracy. Consequently, and in contrast with nearly all second-order upwind schemes available in the literature, the proposed second-order MAW scheme does not need limiters. Some test cases including two pure convection problems, the driven cavity and steady and unsteady flows over a circular cylinder, have been undertaken successfully to validate the new scheme. The verification tests show that the proposed scheme exhibits a low level of artificial viscosity in the pure convection problems; exhibits second-order accuracy for the driven cavity; gives accurate reattachment lengths for low-Reynolds steady flow over a circular cylinder; and gives constant-amplitude vortex shedding for the case of high-Reynolds unsteady flow over a circular cylinder. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.