Vorticity-velocity formulation for high Re flows (Q1821647)

A very accurate ADI method has been applied to the Navier-Stokes equations written in vorticity-velocity variables. Centered in space finite differences reduce the system of P.D.E.'s to an algebraic system of block tridiagonal form. The equations are strongly coupled and they do not require an iterative procedure to obtain a solenoidal velocity field. The present numerical method, with a non-uniform mesh, predicts very good solutions for the driven cavity flow and for the flow over a backward- facing step at high Re using a limited number of calculation points.