CALCULATION OF LAMINAR RECIRCULATING-FLOWS USING A LOCAL NON-STAGGERED GRID REFINEMENT SYSTEM

A grid-embedding technique for the solution of two-dimensional incompressible flows governed by the Navier-Stokes equations is presented. A finite volume method with collocated primitive variables is employed to ensure conservation at the interfaces of embedding grids as well as global conservation. The discretized equations are solved simultaneously for the whole domain, providing a strong coupling between regions of different refinement. The formulation presented herein is applicable to uniform or non-uniform Cartesian meshes. The method was applied to the solution of two scalar transport equations, to cavity flows driven by body and shear forces and to a sudden plane contraction flow. The numerical predictions are compared with the exact solutions when available and with experimental data. The results show that neither the convergence rate nor the stability of the method is affected by the presence of embedded grids. Embedded grids provide a better distribution of grid nodes over the computational domain and consequently the solution accuracy was improved. The grid-embedding technique proved also that significant savings in computing time could be achieved.