High-order solution-adaptive central essentially non-oscillatory (CENO) method for viscous flows

Abstract

A high-order, central, essentially non-oscillatory (CENO), finite-volume scheme in combination with a block-based adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) algorithm is proposed for solution of the Navier–Stokes equations on body-fitted multi-block mesh. In contrast to other ENO schemes which require reconstruction on multiple stencils, the proposed CENO method uses a hybrid reconstruction approach based on a fixed central stencil. This feature is crucial to avoiding the complexities associated with multiple stencils of ENO schemes, providing high-order accuracy at relatively lower computational cost as well as being very well suited for extension to unstructured meshes. The spatial discretization of the inviscid (hyperbolic) fluxes combines an unlimited high-order k-exact least-squares reconstruction technique following from the optimal central stencil with a monotonicity-preserving, limited, linear, reconstruction algorithm. This hybrid reconstruction procedure retains the unlimited high-order k-exact reconstruction for cells in which the solution is fully resolved and reverts to the limited lower-order counterpart for cells with under-resolved/discontinuous solution content. Switching in the hybrid procedure is determined by a smoothness indicator. The high-order viscous (elliptic) fluxes are computed to the same order of accuracy as the hyperbolic fluxes based on a k-order accurate cell interface gradient derived from the unlimited, cell-centred, reconstruction. A somewhat novel h-refinement criterion based on the solution smoothness indicator is used to direct the steady and unsteady mesh adaptation. The proposed numerical procedure is thoroughly analyzed for advection–diffusion problems characterized by the full range of Péclet numbers, and its predictive capabilities are also demonstrated for several inviscid and laminar flows. The ability of the scheme to accurately represent solutions with smooth extrema and yet robustly handle under-resolved and/or non-smooth solution content (i.e., shocks and other discontinuities) is shown. Moreover, the ability to perform mesh refinement in regions of under-resolved and/or non-smooth solution content is also demonstrated.