Discretization and parallel performance of an unstructured finite volume Navier–Stokes solver

Abstract

AbstractThe discretization, parallelization and performance of an implicit, unstructured, time‐dependent Computational Fluid Dynamics code is described. A detailed description is provided of the improvements made on second‐order accurate tools for spatial interpolation and gradient calculation to discretize the Navier–Stokes equations in an unstructured framework. The main goal in the development of the discretization tools was to ensure a scalable and accurate parallel code. The performance of the discretization tools has been validated using standard bench‐mark problems for non‐uniform, non‐orthogonal grids. Parallelization of the code is done within the PETSc framework using a single‐program‐multiple‐data (SPMD) parallelization model. The resulting parallel code is shown to scale linearly within the limit of the available number of processors. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.