Abstract: | This paper is concerned with the numerical resolution of the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations in the velocity–vorticity form on non-orthogonal structured grids. The discretization is performed in such a way, that the discrete operators mimic the properties of the continuous ones. This allows the discrete equivalence between the primitive and velocity–vorticity formulations to be proved. This last formulation can thus be seen as a particular technique for solving the primitive equations. The difficulty associated with non-simply connected computational domains and with the implementation of the boundary conditions are discussed. One of the main drawback of the velocity–vorticity formulation, relative to the additional computational work required for solving the additional unknowns, is alleviated. Two- and three-dimensional numerical test cases validate the proposed method. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. |