A SKEWED, POSITIVE INFLUENCE COEFFICIENT UPWINDING PROCEDURE FOR CONTROL-VOLUME-BASED FINITE-ELEMENT CONVECTION-DIFFUSION COMPUTATION

Abstract

A skewed upwinding procedure is presented for application to the control-volume-based finite-element computation of convective-diffusive transport problems. The method is based on the application of sound physical arguments and further introduces a novel procedure for consideration of convecting flows that vary strongly in both magnitude and direction. Through its basis of development, the procedure inherently precludes the possibility of developing nonphysical spatial oscillations within the solution domain. The procedure is demonstrated by application to two test problems for which its performance has proven to be excellent. The method possesses relatively low levels of false diffusion, is relatively insensitive to grid orientation, demonstrates symmetric characteristics about the centerline of a step-change convective transport, and produces solutions completely free from undesirable spatial oscillations. This latter attribute, in conjunction with its very modest false diffusion levels, renders the procedure attractive for a broad spectrum of problems.