A FINE GRID FINITE-ELEMENT COMPUTATION OF TWO-DIMENSIONAL HIGH REYNOLDS-NUMBER FLOWS

A velocity-pressure integrated, mixed interpolation, Galerkin finite element computation of the Navier-Stokes equations using fine grids, is presented. In the method, the velocity variables were interpolated using complete quadratic shape functions, and the pressure was interpolated using linear shape functions defined on a triangular element, which is contained inside the quadratic element for velocity variables. Comprehensive computational results for a cavity flow for Reynolds number of 400 through 10,000 and a laminar backward-facing step flow for Reynolds number of 100 through 900 are presented in this paper. Many high Reynolds number flows involve convection dominated motion as well as diffusion dominated motion (such as the fluid motion inside the subtle pressure driven recirculation zones where the local Reynolds number may become vanishingly small) in the flow domain. The computational results for both of the fluid motions compared favorably with the high accuracy finite difference computational results and/or experimental data available.