Recent progress toward a three-dimensional unstructured Navier-Stokes flow solver

Abstract

Progress has been made toward solving three-dimensional viscous flow problems with unstructured grids. Enhancements have been added to an established unstructured grid flow solver that upgrade its formal accuracy to second order, improve the code efficiency and speed, and accurately solve the Navier-Stokes equations on tetrahedral cells. Accuracy is increased by a pseudo-Laplacian weight averaging algorithm which produces more robust convergence, and permits higher-order boundary conditions to be used, which is important on highly- stretched cells. An existing time-implicit Gauss-Seidel algorithm is installed which results in an six-fold reduction in total computer time over that of an explicit algorithm for inviscid-flow calculations. Finally, an unstructured laminar solution on the ONERA M6 wing has been validated against a structured- grid solution with encouraging results.