An effective explicit pressure gradient scheme implemented in the two-level non-staggered grids for incompressible Navier–Stokes equations

Abstract: In this paper, an improved two-level method is presented for effectively solving the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations. This proposed method solves a smaller system of nonlinear Navier–Stokes equations on the coarse mesh and needs to solve the Oseen-type linearized equations of motion only once on the fine mesh level. Within the proposed two-level framework, a prolongation operator, which is required to linearize the convective terms at the fine mesh level using the convergent Navier–Stokes solutions computed at the coarse mesh level, is rigorously derived to increase the prediction accuracy. This indispensable prolongation operator can properly communicate the flow velocities between the two mesh levels because it is locally analytic. Solution convergence can therefore be accelerated. For the sake of numerical accuracy, momentum equations are discretized by employing the general solution for the two-dimensional convection–diffusion–reaction model equation. The convective instability problem can be simultaneously eliminated thanks to the proper treatment of convective terms. The converged solution is, thus, very high in accuracy as well as in yielding a quadratic spatial rate of convergence. For the sake of programming simplicity and computational efficiency, pressure gradient terms are rigorously discretized within the explicit framework in the non-staggered grid system. The proposed analytical prolongation operator for the mapping of solutions from the coarse to fine meshes and the explicit pressure gradient discretization scheme, which accommodates the dispersion-relation-preserving property, have been both rigorously justified from the predicted Navier–Stokes solutions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]