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On the use of central difference scheme for Navier–Strokes equations
Author(s) -
Gupta Murli M.,
Manohar Ram P.
Publication year - 1980
Publication title -
international journal for numerical methods in engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.421
H-Index - 168
eISSN - 1097-0207
pISSN - 0029-5981
DOI - 10.1002/nme.1620150407
Subject(s) - reynolds number , mathematics , laminar flow , upwind scheme , finite difference , flow (mathematics) , compressibility , mathematical analysis , geometry , mechanics , discretization , physics , turbulence
Both the central and upwind difference schemes are commonaly employed to solve the Navier‐Stokes equations governing the two‐dimensional laminar flow of an incompressible laminar flow of an incompressible viscous fluid. By a judicious choice of a damping parameter and using direct methods for solving the systems of linear equations appearing in an iterative procedure, the central difference scheme could be made to give convergent results even for large Reynolds numbers. Using a model problem of flow through a driven square cavity it is shown that the converged results so obtained become progressively oscillatory and inaccurate as the Reynolds number increases. It is known that the central difference scheme gives more accurate results than the upwind difference scheme, at least for small values of Reynolds number. However, for a reasonably small mesh size the numerical solutions obtained by using either the central or the upwind difference scheme do not differ appreciably at low Reynolds numbers. There is a small range of Reynolds numbers for which the central difference scheme may yield more accurate results than the upwind difference scheme; however, this range is not known a priori.