Channel Flow Computations Using Characteristics

Abstract

It is shown that the direct formulation of the rectangular grid broken characteristic method can be used without adherence to the Courant condition. When small distance steps are used, it is possible to use time steps with large Courant numbers with relatively little loss of accuracy. Larger distance steps require the restriction of the Courant numbers to smaller values to maintain resonable accuracies. Considerable savings in computation times are now possible as a result. Restriction of the magnitude of the Courant number allowed seems to be needed only from the point of view of accuracy.