Accuracy Verification of a 2D Adaptive Mesh Refinement Method Using Backward-Facing Step Flow of Low Reynolds Numbers

Abstract

Identifying centers of vortices of fluid flow accurately is one of the accuracy measures for computational methods. After verifying the accuracy of the 2D adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) method in the benchmarks of 2D lid-driven cavity flow, this paper shows the accuracy verification by the benchmarks of 2D backward-facing step flow. The AMR method refines a mesh using the numerical solution of the Navier–Stokes equations computed on the mesh by an open source software Navier2D which implemented a vertex centered finite volume method (FVM) using the median dual mesh to form control volumes about each vertex. The accuracy is shown by the comparison between vortex center locations calculated from the linearly interpolated numerical solutions and those obtained in the benchmark. The AMR method is proposed based on the qualitative theory of differential equations, and it can be applied to refine a mesh as many times as required and used to seek accurate numerical solutions of the mathematical models including the continuity equation for incompressible fluid or steady-state compressible flow with low computational cost.