Assessment on Effects of Under-Relaxation Factors on 2D Incompressible Laminar Flow over a Backward-Facing Step (BFS)

Abstract

In this paper, the effects of changing under-relaxation factors for different variables on the numerical solution of 2D incompressible laminar flow over a backward-facing step (BFS) are studied using PHOENICS commercial Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software. This is conducted by changing under-relaxation factors for velocities and pressure during the 2D simulation. Ten different batches of under-relaxation factor for pressure ranging from 0.1 to 1.0 were used while the values of under-relaxation factor for velocities were manipulated between 0.1 and 1.0. For each batch of the computation, the error percentage of pressure and velocities were obtained. Based on this work, it is found that the recommended values of under-relaxation factor for pressure to achieve lower error percentage are between 0.6 and 0.8. Based on findings of the study, the appropriate values of under-relaxation factor for pressure and velocities can be selected to achieve the levels of error percentage permitted for computational studies.