A Study on the Choice of Dependent Variables of Momentum Equations in the General Curvilinear Coordinate

Abstract

This paper represents the importance of dependent variables in non-orthogonal curvilinear coordinates just as the importance of those variables of convective scheme and turbulence model in computational fluid dynamics. Each of Cartesian, physical covariant and physical contravariant velocity components was tested as the dependent variables of momentum equations in the staggered grid system. In the flow past a circular cylinder, the results were computed to use each of three variables and compared to experimental data. In the skewed driven cavity flow, the results were computed to check the grid dependency of the variables. The results used in Cartesian and physical contravariant components of velocity in cylinder flow show the nearly same accuracy. In the case of Cartesian and contravariant component, the same number of vortex was predicted in the skewed driven cavity flow. Vortex strength of Cartesian component case has about 30% lower value than that of the other two cases.