Applied and Interdisciplinary Mathematics Seminar

University of Michigan

Winter 2004
Friday, January 9, 3:10-4:00pm, 4096 East Hall

Numerical Schemes for the Navier-Stokes Equations Based on Explicit Treatment of the Pressure

Hans Johnston

University of Michigan, Department of Mathematics


Abstract

Numerical schemes are presented for the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations based on a primitive variable formulation in which pressure is treated explicitly in time and the incompressibility constraint has been replaced by a pressure Poisson equation. The crucial point for these schemes is the proper enforcement of a Neumann boundary condition for the pressure Poisson equation, which in turn ensures satisfaction of the divergence-free condition for the velocity field. The computation of the momentum and kinematic equations are fully decoupled, resulting is a class of extremely efficient Navier-Stokes solvers. Moreover, the schemes are not projection-type methods and are free of numerical boundary layers resulting from time consistency issues inherent in such splitting methods. Full time accuracy is achieved for all flow variables in the L norm. In particular, unconditional stability of this approach applied to the Stokes's equation is proven for both first or second order implicit time discretization. Numerical examples are presented using finite differences, collocation and Galerkin spectral methods, demonstrating the flexibility of the approach in the choice of spatial discretization.