| Abstract: | Numerical solutions using the SIMPLE algorithms for laminar flow over a backward-facing step are presented. Five differencing schemes were used: hybrid; quadratic upwind (QUICK); second-order upwind (SOUD); central-differencing and a novel scheme named second-order upwind biased (SOUBD). The SOUBD scheme is shown to be part of a family of schemes which include the central-differencing, SOUD and QUICK schemes for uniform grids. The results of the backward-facing step problem are presented and are compared with other numerical solutions and experimental data to evaluate the accuracy of the differencing schemes. The accuracy of the differencing schemes was ascertained by using uniform grids of various grid densities. The QUICK, SOUBD and SOUD schemes gave very similar accurate results. The hybrid scheme suffered from excessive diffusion except for the finest grids and the central-differencing scheme only converged for the finest grids. |
