Comparison of finite-volume numerical methods with staggered and colocated grids

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Abstract

The paper presents a detailed comparison of two finite-volume solution methods for two-dimensional incompressible fluid flows, one with staggered and the other with colocated numerical grids. The staggered method is well-known and well-established, and it is used here as a standard against which the relatively new colocated approach is compared. Three test cases were considered, employing orthogonal rectilinear grids: lid driven cavity flow, backward facing step flow and flow through a pipe with sudden contraction. The results of the computations demonstrate that the convergence rate, dependency on under-relaxation parameters, computational effort and accuracy are almost identical for both solution methods. The colocated method converges faster in some cases, and has advantages when extensions such as multigrid techniques and non-orthogonal grids are considered.

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