Coupling staggered-grid and vertex-centered finite-volume methods for coupled porous-medium free-flow problems

Abstract

A new discretization approach for coupled free and porous-medium flows is introduced, which uses a finite-volume staggered-grid method for the discretization of the Navier-Stokes equations in the free-flow subdomain, while a vertex-centered finite-volume method is employed in the porous medium. The latter allows for the use of unstructured grids to discretize the porous medium, and the presented method is capable of handling non-matching grids at the interface. Moreover, the basis functions of the vertex-centered finite-volume method, with their degrees of freedom located at the interface, allow for an accurate evaluation of the coupling terms and of additional nonlinear velocity-dependent terms in the porous medium. The available advantages of this coupling method are investigated in a series of tests: a convergence test for various grid types, an evaluation of the implementation of the coupling conditions, and an example using the velocity-dependent Forchheimer term in the porous-medium subdomain.