Consistent Finite Element Calculations of Boundary and Internal Fluxes

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to develop a consistent method to calculate the fluxes or the stresses in an incompressible flow, particularly a turbulent flow. A post-processing technique has been developed such that fluxes or stresses are treated as unknown values, which are solved for, weakly, using the finite element method. The method has been applied to calculate the Reynolds stresses in a turbulent channel flow. As a result of the new consistent method, the Reynolds stresses have shown good agreement with the DNS data confirming the momentum conservation of the finite element method.