Abstract
This chapter describes in detail the discretization of the diffusion term represented by the spatial Laplacian operator. It is investigated separately from the convection term, because convection and diffusion represent two distinct physical phenomena. Thus from a numerical point of view, they have to be handled differently, requiring distinct interpolation profiles with disparate considerations. The chapter begins with the discretization of the diffusion equation in the presence of a source term over a two-dimensional rectangular domain using a Cartesian grid system. The adopted interpolation profile for the variation of the dependent variable between grid points and the basic rules that should be satisfied by the coefficients of the discretized equation are discussed. The chapter proceeds with a discussion on the implementation of the Dirichlet, Von Neumann, mixed, and symmetry boundary conditions. The discretization over a non-Cartesian orthogonal grid is then introduced, followed by a detailed description of the discretization on non-orthogonal structured and unstructured grid systems. The treatment of the non-orthogonal cross-diffusion contribution, which necessitates computation of the gradient, is clarified. Then anisotropic diffusion is introduced and handled following the same methodology developed for isotropic diffusion. The under-relaxation procedure needed for highly non-linear problems is outlined. The chapter ends with computational pointers explaining the treatment of diffusion in both uFVM and OpenFOAMĀ®.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Patankar SV (1980) Numerical heat transfer and fluid flow. Hemisphere Publishing Corporation, McGraw-Hill, USA
Jiang T, Przekwas AJ (1994) Implicit, pressure-based incompressible Navier-stokes equations solver for unstructured meshes. AIAA-94-0305
Davidson L (1996) A pressure correction method for unstructured meshes with arbitrary control volumes. Int J Numer Meth Fluids 22:265ā281
Barth TJ (1992) Aspects of unstructured grids and finite-volume solvers for the Euler and Navier-stokes equations. Special course on unstructured grid methods for advection dominated flows. AGARD Report 787
Perez-Segarra CD, Farre C, Cadafalch J, Oliva A (2006) Analysis of different numerical schemes for the resolution of convection-diffusion equations using finite-volume methods on three-dimensional unstructured grids, Part I: discretization schemes. Numer Heat Transfer Part B: Fundam 49(4):333ā350
Demirdzic I, Lilek Z, Peric M (1990) Finite volume method for prediction of fluid flow in arbitrary shaped domains with moving boundary. Int J Numer Meth Fluids 10:771ā790
Demirdzic I, Lilek Z, Peric M (1993) A collocated finite volume method for predicting flows at all speeds. Int J Numer Meth Fluids 16:1029ā1050
Warsi ZUA (1993) Fluid dynamics: theoretical and computational approaches. CRC Press, Boca Raton
Berend FD, van Wachem GM (2014) Compressive VOF method with skewness correction to capture sharp interfaces on arbitrary meshes. J Comput Phys 279:127ā144
Jasak H (1996) Error analysis and estimation for the finite volume method with applications to fluid flow. Ph.D. thesis, Imperial College London
Balckwell BF, Hogan RE (1993) Numerical solution of axisymmetric heat conduction problems using the finite control volume technique. J Thermophys Heat Transfer 7:462ā471
Wang S (2002) Solving convection-dominated anisotropic diffusion equations by an exponentially fitted finite volume method. Comput Math Appl 44:1249ā1265
Jayantha PA, Turner IW (2003) On the use of surface interpolation techniques in generalised finite volume strategies for simulating transport in highly anisotropic porous media. J Comput Appl Math 152:199ā216
Bertolazzi E, Manzini G (2006) A second-order maximum principle preserving finite volume method for steady convection-diffusion problems. SIAM J Numer Anal 43:2172ā2199
Domelevo K, Omnes P (2005) A finite volume method for the Laplace equation on almost arbitrary two-dimensional grids. Math Model Numer Anal 39:1203ā1249
Eymard E, Gallouet T, Herbin R (2004) A finite volume scheme for anisotropic diffusion problems. Comptes Rendus Mathematiques (CR MATH) 339:299ā302
Darwish M, Moukalled F (2009) A compact procedure for discretization of the anisotropic diffusion operator. Numer Heat Transfer, Part B 55:339ā360
OpenFOAM, 2015 Version 2.3.x. http://www.openfoam.org
OpenFOAM Doxygen, 2015 Version 2.3.x.Ā http://www.openfoam.org/docs/cpp/
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
Ā© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Moukalled, F., Mangani, L., Darwish, M. (2016). Spatial Discretization: The Diffusion Term. In: The Finite Volume Method in Computational Fluid Dynamics. Fluid Mechanics and Its Applications, vol 113. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16874-6_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16874-6_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-16873-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-16874-6
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)