A two‐step Taylor‐characteristic‐based Galerkin method for incompressible flows and its application to flow over triangular cylinder with different incidence angles

An alternative characteristic‐based scheme, the two‐step Taylor‐characteristic‐based Galerkin method is developed based on the introduction of multi‐step temporal Taylor series expansion up to second order along the characteristic of the momentum equation. Contrary to the classical characteristic‐based split (CBS) method, the current characteristic‐based method does not require splitting the momentum equation, and segregate the calculation of the pressure from that of the velocity by using the momentum–pressure Poisson equation method. Some benchmark problems are used to examine the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm and to compare with the original CBS method, and the results show that the proposed method has preferable accuracy with less numerical dissipation. We further applied the method to the numerical simulation of flow around equilateral triangular cylinder with different incidence angles in free stream. In this numerical investigation, the flow simulations are carried out in the low Reynolds number range. Instantaneous streamlines around the cylinder are used as a means to visualize the wake region behind, and they clearly show the flow pattern around the cylinder in time. The influence of incidence angle on flow characteristic parameters such as Strouhal number, Drag and Lift coefficients are discussed quantitatively. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.