A high-order compact difference algorithm for half-staggered grids for laminar and turbulent incompressible flows

Abstract The paper presents a novel, efficient and accurate algorithm for laminar and turbulent flow simulations. The spatial discretisation is performed with help of the compact difference schemes (up to 10th order) for collocated and half-staggered grid arrangements. The time integration is performed by a predictor–corrector approach combined with the projection method for pressure–velocity coupling. At this stage a low order discretisation is introduced which considerably decreases the computational costs. It is demonstrated that such approach does not deteriorate the solution accuracy significantly. Following Boersma B.J. [13] the interpolation formulas developed for staggered uniform meshes are used also in the computations with a non-uniform strongly varying nodes distribution. In the proposed formulation of the projection method such interpolation is performed twice. It is shown that it acts implicitly as a high-order low pass filter and therefore the resulting algorithm is very robust. Its accuracy is first demonstrated based on simple 2D and 3D problems: an inviscid vortex advection, a decay of Taylor–Green vortices, a modified lid-driven cavity flow and a dipole–wall interaction. In periodic flow problems (the first two cases) the solution accuracy exhibits the 10th order behaviour, in the latter cases the 3rd and the 4th order is obtained. Robustness of the proposed method in the computations of turbulent flows is demonstrated for two classical cases: a periodic channel with Re τ = 395 and Re τ = 590 and a round jet with Re = 21 000 . The solutions are obtained without any turbulence model and also without any explicit techniques aiming to stabilise the solution. The results are in a very good agreement with literature DNS and LES data, both the mean and r.m.s. values are predicted correctly.