An adaptive grid method for Navier-Stokes flow computation (Q1085713)

A study has been conducted to investigate the adaptive grid method, based on the concept of equidistribution, applied to Navier-Stokes flow computations. It is demonstrated that due to the fundamental differences between the structure of the pressure field and the velocity field, an adaptive grid strategy that employs multiple one-dimensional grid adjustment procedures using different weighting functions for different directions is useful. A consistency check is devised to evaluate the a posteriori error of a given numerical solution. Two different flow configurations with Reynolds number 500 have been calculated on several grid systems with different nodal points as well as different distributions. It is shown that, as a result of this adaptive grid method, the numerical accuracy obtained with given number of nodal points can be improved. It is demonstrated that (without attempting simultaneously to extremize several measures in the whole flow domain), the present multiple one-dimensional adaptive grid method enables one to concentrate the grids more easily in the regions needed. This method should prove useful for many Navier-Stokes flow calculations.