A Chimera method for the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations

The Chimera method was developed three decades ago as a meshing simplification tool. Different components are meshed independently and then glued together using a domain decomposition technique to couple the equations solved on each component. This coupling is achieved via transmission conditions (in the finite element context) or by imposing the continuity of fluxes (in the finite volume context). Historically, the method has then been used extensively to treat moving objects, as the independent meshes are free to move with respect to the others. At each time step, the main task consists in recomputing the interpolation of the transmission conditions or fluxes. This paper presents a Chimera method applied to the Navier–Stokes equations. After an introduction on the Chimera method, we describe in two different sections the two independent steps of the method: the hole cutting to create the interfaces of the subdomains and the coupling of the subdomains. Then, we present the Navier–Stokes solver considered in this work. Implementation aspects are then detailed in order to apply efficiently the method to this specific parallel Navier–Stokes solver. We conclude with some examples to demonstrate the reliability and application of the proposed method. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.