High-Order-Accurate Methods for Complex Unsteady Subsonic Flows

Abstract

Several issues related to the application of very high-order schemes for the finite difference simulation of the full Navier-Stokes equations are investigated. The schemes utilize an implicit, approximately factored time-integration method coupled with spatial fourth- and sixth-order compact-difference formulations and a filtering strategy of up to tenth order. For this last aspect a consistent optimization approach is developed to treat points near the boundary resulting in minimal degradation of accuracy. The problems investigated exhibit many of the challenging features of practical flows and include several with complications introduced by curvilinear meshes, viscous effects, unsteadiness, and three-dimensionality. The high-order method is observed to be very robust for every problem considered. The algorithm is demonstrated to be highly accurate compared to both second-order and upwind-biased methods. For several cases, particularly very-low-Mach-number flows, filtering is determined to be a superior alternative to scalar damping