A comparison of staggered and non-staggered grid Navier--Stokes solutions for the 8:1 cavity natural convection flow

Abstract

The Navier--Stokes equations may be discretised using finite-volume schemes on non-staggered or on staggered grids. The staggered grid is known to prevent pressure oscillations that may occur on the non-staggered grid; however, this is at the expense of increased code complexity. Non-staggered grid schemes that employ iterative time integration are known to require the use of some form of explicit correction in the construction of the Poisson pressure correction equation. We investigate a fractional-step pressure-correction non-staggered scheme and compare it to a similar fractional-step staggered grid scheme for bifurcated natural convection flow in an 8:1 cavity.