Steady laminar flow over a downstream-facing step as a critical test case for the upwind Petrov-Galerkin finite element method

Galerkin finite element methods based on symmetric weighting functions give oscillations in the solution of steady Navier-Stokes equations when the Reynolds number is large. To overcome this difficulty Galerkin methods with asymmetric weighting functions can be used. In the present paper a critical test case is calculated with this so-called Petrov-Galerkin method. Comparison between calculations and experiments proofs that the accuracy of the method is good, even for a Reynolds number based on mesh size as high as two hundred.