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This paper describes a finite element solution algorithm for the numerical solution of large size three-dimensional flow problems on a personal computer. To demonstrate the algorithm, the Stokes equations in velocity–vorticity form are solved for a lid-driven cubical cavity problem. The Galerkin's weighted residual form of the governing equations is evaluated for all the elements of the computational domain and kept as element-matrices and element-vectors. This results in a set of simultaneous equations corresponding to the global nodes of each element. Those elements that contain the boundary nodes are modified to incorporate the Dirichlet boundary conditions. A conjugate gradient iterative scheme is employed to solve the simultaneous equations in element form to get the solution at the global nodes. The matrix–vector products used in the conjugate gradient iterative solver are performed in element level, assembling only the element-level vectors to form the global vectors. Since the element-level computation has eluded the formation of global matrices, the numerical solution of three-dimensional Stokes equations using a mesh of size as high as 513 could be achieved on a personal computer. The algorithm is validated by comparing the results for a three-dimensional transient diffusion problem and Stokes flow in a lid-driven cubical cavity. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the incorporation of diffusive transport into the original semi-Lagrangian DISCUS algorithm for pure advection. An explicit treatment of diffusion is adopted following the approach used in the QUICKEST algorithm for advection–diffusion. The semi-Lagrangian treatment of the advection term relaxes the small time step restriction normally associated with Eulerian treatments of advection, but the Eulerian treatment of the diffusion term imposes conventional limitations on the scheme. Numerical experiments of advection–diffusion, however, indicate that DISCUS has advantages over the QUICKEST scheme for advection–diffusion in three key areas: stability, accuracy and computational efficiency. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]