| Abstract: | A finite volume incompressible flow solver is presented for three‐dimensional unsteady flows based on an unstructured tetrahedral mesh, with collocation of the flow variables at the cell vertices. The solver is based on the pressure‐correction method, with an explicit prediction step of the momentum equations followed by a Poisson equation for the correction step to enforce continuity. A consistent discretization of the Poisson equation was found to be essential in obtaining a solution. The correction step was solved with the biconjugate gradient stabilized (Bi‐CGSTAB) algorithm coupled with incomplete lower–upper (ILU) preconditioning. Artificial dissipation is used to prevent the formation of instabilities. Flow solutions are presented for a stalling airfoil, vortex shedding past a bridge deck and flow in model alveoli. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. |
