Pressure weighted upwinding for flow induced force predictions: application to iced surfaces

This paper addresses two main topics, namely the development of a pressure-weighted upwinding method and its application to flow induced forces on iced cylinders. Although the near-wall convective upwinding exhibits special applicability to iced surfaces, its capabilities extend more generally to other applications. By fully linking pressure and velocity at a sub-element level near the wall, a higher order accuracy can be obtained. Also, a non-physical de-coupling between pressure and velocity can be prevented. The method is developed under the context of a control-volume-based finite element method for 2-D, incompressible flows. Drag and lift coefficients are predicted, based on the pressure weighted upwinding near the wall. The numerical predictions are successfully compared against experimental data, including flow induced forces on iced cables. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.