Development of an artificial compressibility methodology using flux vector splitting

Abstract

An implicit, upwind arithmetic scheme that is efficient for the solution of laminar, steady, incompressible, two-dimensional flow fields in a generalised co-ordinate system is presented in this paper. The developed algorithm is based on the extended flux-vector-splitting (FVS) method for solving incompressible flow fields. As in the case of compressible flows, the FVS method consists of the decomposition of the convective fluxes into positive and negative parts that transmit information from the upstream and downstream flow field respectively. The extension of this method to the solution of incompressible flows is achieved by the method of artificial compressibility, whereby an artificial time derivative of the pressure is added to the continuity equation. In this way the incompressible equations take on a hyperbolic character with pseudopressure waves propagating with finite speed. In such problems the ‘information’ inside the field is transmitted along its characteristic curves. In this sense, we can use upwind schemes to represent the finite volume scheme of the problem's governing equations. For the representation of the problem variables at the cell faces, upwind schemes up to third order of accuracy are used, while for the development of a time-iterative procedure a first-order-accurate Euler backward-time difference scheme is used and a second-order central differencing for the shear stresses is presented. The discretized Navier–Stokes equations are solved by an implicit unfactored method using Newton iterations and Gauss–Siedel relaxation. To validate the derived arithmetical results against experimental data and other numerical solutions, various laminar flows with known behaviour from the literature are examined. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.