International Journal of Computational Fluid Dynamics

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HLLC scheme for the preconditioned pseudo-

compressibility NavierStokes equations for
incompressible viscous flows

Zhansen Qian & Chun-Hian Lee

To cite this article: Zhansen Qian & Chun-Hian Lee (2015) HLLC scheme for the preconditioned
pseudo-compressibility NavierStokes equations for incompressible viscous flows, International
Journal of Computational Fluid Dynamics, 29:6-8, 400-410, DOI: 10.1080/10618562.2015.1111342

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International Journal of Computational Fluid Dynamics, 2015
Vol. 29, Nos. 68, 400410, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10618562.2015.1111342

HLLC scheme for the preconditioned pseudo-compressibility NavierStokes equations for

incompressible viscous flows
Zhansen Qiana,b, and Chun-Hian Leec
a
AVIC Aerodynamics Research Institute, Beijing, China; b AVIC Aeronautical Science and Technology Key Lab for High Speed and High
Reynolds Number Aerodynamic Force Research, Shenyang, China; c National Lab. for Computational Fluid Dynamics, School of
Aeronautic Science and Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing, China
(Received 9 November 2014; accepted 19 October 2015)

A new HLLC (Harten-Lax-van leer contact) approximate Riemann solver with the preconditioning technique based on
the pseudo-compressibility formulation for numerical simulation of the incompressible viscous flows has been proposed,
which follows the HLLC Riemann solver (Harten, Lax and van Leer solver with contact resolution modified by Toro) for
the compressible flow system. In the authors previous work, the preconditioned Roes Riemann solver is applied to the
finite difference discretisation of the inviscid flux for incompressible flows. Although the Roes Riemann solver is found to
be an accurate and robust scheme in various numerical computations, the HLLC Riemann solver is more suitable for the
pseudo-compressible NavierStokes equations, in which the inviscid flux vector is a non-homogeneous function of degree
one of the flow field vector, and however the Roes solver is restricted to the homogeneous systems. Numerical investigations
have been performed in order to demonstrate the efficiency and accuracy of the present procedure in both two- and three-
dimensional cases. The present results are found to be in good agreement with the exact solutions, existing numerical results
and experimental data.
Keywords: HLL schemes; HLLC schemes; pseudo-compressibility method; preconditioned technique; incompressible flow

1. Introduction simulation. The sixth- and eighth-order central compact

The difficulty of solving the incompressible NavierStokes
(N-S) equations numerically originates from decoupling the
velocity and pressure fields resulting in the zero divergence
condition for the continuity equation hard to be satisfied.
The pseudo-compressibility method proposed by Chorin
(1967) introduced an additional time derivative term of the
pressure field to the continuity equation so that the continu-
ity and momentum equations are solved in a coupled man-
ner. After Chorin and Kwak (Kwak and Chakravarthy 1986)
used central schemes to solve the pseudo-compressible N-
S equations, and Rogers (Rogers and Kwak 1988; Rogers
and Kwak 1990) proposed the upwind schemes similar
to compressible flow simulations to compute the incom-
pressible flows. Besides, high-order schemes were also
applied to the pseudo-compressible N-S equations. The
high-order Weighted Essentially Non-oscillation (WENO)
scheme was employed by Chen (Chen, Yang, and Yang
1999) as well to solve the pseudo-compressible N-S equa-
tions. Ekaterinaris (2004) adopted the sixth-order cen-
tral compact scheme based on the pseudo-compressibility
method to calculate the incompressible flow. The present
authors (Qian and Zhang 2012; Zhang and Qian 2012) also
introduced the high-order central compact schemes to the
pseudo-compressibility procedure for incompressible flows
schemes are respectively utilised in references Qian and
Zhang (2012) and Zhang and Qian (2012), and satisfactory
numerical results are obtained.
On the other hand, the preconditioning technique is also
an effective approach to generalise the numerical schemes
for compressible N-S equations to the incompressible flows.
When the compressible N-S equations are utilised to de-
scribe the incompressible flows, there may exist stiffness
which comes from the fact that the orders of magnitude
of the eigenvalues of the governing equations differ con-
siderably from each other when the flow speed is very
low. The traditional precondition procedure by multiply-
ing a preconditioned matrix in the time derivative of the
ill-posed flux Jacobin matrix of compressible N-S equa-
tions brings the orders of magnitude of the eigenvalues
of this system close to each other, and thus accelerates
the numerical convergent speed. This approach was widely
adopted to develop a numerical scheme suitable for full flow
speed range including very low-speed incompressible flows
to high-speed compressible flows, based on the compress-
ible N-S equations, and the typical works, including Choi
and Merkle (1993), Turkel (1999), Weiss and Smith (1995)
and Dailey and Pletcher (1995), among others. In addition,
Advection UPstream Splitting Method-type schemes

Corresponding author. Email: qianzs@avicari.com.cn


C 2015 Taylor & Francis
 International Journal of Computational Fluid Dynamics
(AUSM-type schemes) (Liou 2006), Harten-Lax-van Leer-
Einfeldt (HLLE) scheme (Park, Lee, and Kwon 2006) and
HLLC scheme (Luo, Baum, and Lohner 2005) are also
generalised to flows at all speeds recently. However, all
the above preconditioned schemes are based on the com-
pressible N-S equations, and most of the methods try to
guarantee the accuracy of the numerical results for very
low-speed flows, so the computational efficiency may not
be always high for very low-speed flows.
The pseudo-compressibility method based on the in-
compressible N-S equations can maintain high computa-
tional efficiency for very low Mach number flows, so when
the flow field does not have high Mach number flow re-
gions, such as the whole incompressible flow, this method
is prior to the above-mentioned preconditioned schemes.
Meanwhile, the matured numerical schemes for the com-
pressible N-S equations can easily be transplanted to the
pseudo-compressible N-S equations to solve the incom-
pressible flows effectively and accurately, such as Kwak and
Chakravarthy (1986), Rogers and Kwak (1988), Rogers and
Kwak (1990), Chen, Yang, and Yang (1999), Ekaterinaris
(2004), Qian and Zhang (2012) and Zhang and Qian (2012).
To further improve the computational efficiency of the
pseudo-compressibility method, Turkel (1999, 1987) im-
posed the precondition concept on the pseudo-compressible
N-S equations for incompressible flow simulation and de-
rived the preconditioned pseudo-compressible N-S equa-
tions, and theoretically discussed the selection criterion of
the parameters introduced by the pseudo-compressibility
and precondition procedure. After Turkels work, some oth-
ers extended this procedure further. Esfahanian and Ak-
barzadeh (2008) and LiuZheng, and Sung (1998) discre-
tised the preconditioned pseudo-compressible N-S equa-
tions using the second-order central difference scheme with
fourth-order artificial dissipation terms added. Then the
authors (Qian, Zhang, and Li 2010) derived the eigen-
values and eigenvectors of the preconditioned pseudo-
compressible N-S equations, and developed upwind Roe
scheme for this equations. The influences of the precondi-
tion parameter and the pseudo-compressibility factor
on the convergence rate were also investigated systemati-
cally by numerical experiments, and the optimal parameters
were identified.
Although the pseudo-compressibility method has been
widely used in past three decades (Kwak and Chakravarthy
1986; Rogers and Kwak 1988; Rogers and Kwak 1990;
Chen, Yang, and Yang 1999; Ekaterinaris 2004; Qian and
Zhang 2012; Zhang and Qian 2012; Turkel 1999; Turkel
1987; Esfahanian and Akbarzadeh 2008; Liu, Zheng, and
Sung 1998; Qian, Zhang, and Li 2010), the applications
were limited to two classes of schemes, namely the Jame-
son central scheme (Jameson 1991) and the Roe upwind
scheme (Roe 1981). Our previous work (Qian, Zhang, and
Li 2010) and others work (Esfahanian and Akbarzadeh
2008) show that the Roe upwind scheme is superior to the
401
Jameson central scheme for both lower dissipation and free
of turned parameters. However, the inviscid flux vector F
of the pseudo-compressible N-S equations is not a homo-
geneous function of degree one of the flow field vector
U , namely F = AU , and the homogeneous property is
also a critical assumption in Roes scheme. Consequently,
Roes upwind scheme may be not proper in the pseudo-
compressibility case.
The HLL scheme (Harten-Lax-van leer) proposed by
Harten et al. (Harten, Lax, and van Leer 1983) approximates
the solution of the Riemann problem with two signal waves,
and the homogeneous property of the flux is not required by
this type of scheme. After Harten, some modifications such
as HLLE (Einfeldt 1988), Harten-Lax-van Leer-Einfeldt
Modified (HLLEM) (Einfeldt et al. 1991), HLLE + (Park
and Kwon 2003), HLLC (Toro, Spruce, and Speares 1994;
Toro 1997) are proposed to improve the robustness and
reduce the numerical dissipation. In the mentioned works,
the HLLC scheme proposed by Toro et al. (Toro, Spruce,
and Speares 1994; Toro 1997) restores the contact surface
which is missed in the original HLL Riemann solver, and
yields accurate solutions for viscous flow simulations. This
type of schemes is widely used in numerical simulations of
compressible N-S equations.
In this paper, a new approximate Riemann solver of up-
wind scheme for the preconditioned pseudo-compressible
N-S equations for incompressible flow is derived following
the HLL scheme proposed by Harten et al. (Harten, Lax, and
van Leer 1983) and its modified form HLLC scheme pro-
posed by Toro et al. (Toro, Spruce, and Speares 1994, Toro
1997) for compressible flow simulations. In this approxi-
mate Riemann solver, we do not assume the homogeneous
property of the inviscid flux. Therefore, the proposed ap-
proximate Riemann solver is more proper and general for
incompressible flows simulation.
A numerical framework including the pseudo-
compressibility procedure, the preconditioning technique
and the proposed HLLC Riemann solver is then estab-
lished for the viscous incompressible flow simulation based
on the finite difference discretisation. The implicit lower
upper symmetric GaussSeidel (LU-SGS) time advance-
ment method (Yoon and Jameson 1988) is adopted for the
pseudo time sub-iteration to overcome the restricted time
step in an explicit scheme. For unsteady problems, the time
accuracy can be improved by employing the dual-time step
method (Jameson 1991). Several numerical test cases, in-
cluding laminar flow over a flat plate, low Reynolds num-
ber flow over a circular cylinder, high Reynolds turbulent
flow over the S809 airfoil with the two equations k SST
turbulent model, and the three-dimensional flows through
90 curved squared ducts, are numerically investigated in
this paper in order to demonstrate the efficiency and accu-
racy of the present method. The present results are found
agreeing well with the exact solutions, existing numerical
results and experimental data.
402 Z. Qian and C.-H. Lee

2. Preconditioned pseudo-compressibility
NavierStokes equations
The pseudo-compressibility procedure and the precondi-
tioning technique for convergence acceleration for stiff hy-
perbolic equations are employed to develop a highly effi-
cient in-house code for solving incompressible flows nu-
merically in the authors previous work (Qian, Zhang, and
Li 2010).
The preconditioned pseudo-compressibility three-
dimensional N-S equations in Cartesian coordinates can
be given as
dinates x, y, z; V is the free stream velocity, and the non-
dimensional pressure is p = (p p )/ V 2
. The density
and dynamic viscous coefficient are treated as constant
in this paper.
In order to compute flows over complex configurations
using a finite difference method, the governing equations in
the Cartesian coordinate system need to be transformed into
a general curvilinear coordinate system by the transforma-
tion (x, y, z) (, , ), and the transformed governing
equations can be symbolically written in a vector notation
as

 1 Qt + (E E v )x + (F F v )y + (G Gv )z = 0,
 1 Qt + (E E v ) + (F F v ) + (G Gv ) = 0,
(1)
(4)
where
where
 2
1  0 0 0
u 2 1 0 0 p U
 1 = 
v 2 0 1 0 .
(2) u
 2 Q =
1 , E = 1 U u + x p ,
w 0 0 1 J v
J U v + y p
w U w + z p

Here,  1 is the precondition matrix, denotes the pseudo- V W
compressibility factor, and denotes the parameter intro- V u + x p 1
F =
1 W u + x p
duced by precondition. The selection of parameters and J V v + y p , G = J W v + y p ,
is critical to the accuracy and convergence rate, and detailed V w + z p W w + z p
discussions have been given in Turkel (1999) and system-  
1
atic numerical tests have been done in Qian, Zhang, and Li E v = x E v + y F v + z Gv
(2010) separately. The state variableQ, fluxes E, F , G, E v , J
F v and Gv are shown as below and are also identical to 0
1 x xx + y yx + z zx
=
x xy + y yy + z zy ,
those given in (Qian and Zhang (2012), Turkel (1999) and
Qian, Zhang, and Li (2010). J
x xz + y yz + z zz
 
p u 1
u 2 F v = x E v + y F v + z Gv
Q= ,E = u + p, J
v uv 0
w uw 1 x xx + y yx + z zx
=

J x xy + y yy + z zy ,
v w
vu wu x xz + y yz + z zz
F = 2
v + p , G = wv , 1  
Gv = x E v + y F v + z Gv
vw w2 + p J

0 0 0 0
1 v yx v zx 1 x xx + y yx + z zx
,F = 1 ,G = 1 , =
x xy + y yy + z zy .
xx
Ev = (5)
Re xy Re yy Re zy J
xz yz zz x xz + y yz + z zz

u u v u w
xx = 2 , xy = + ,xz = + ,
x y x z x in which

v v w
yx = xy , yy = 2 , yz = + ,
y z y U = x u + y v + z w, V = x u + y v + z w,
w
zx = xz , zy = yz , zz = 2 , (3) W = x u + y v + z w, (6)
z

where Reynolds number Re = V L/ ; u, v, w are ve- and U, V , W are the components of the contravariant
locity components along, respectively, the Cartesian coor- velocity vector, respectively. J is the Jacobian of the
 International Journal of Computational Fluid Dynamics 403

transformation, and given as follows: t

SL SR
U hll
x y z

J = x y z . (7)
x y z UL UR
x
The details can also be seen in Qian and Zhang (2012);
Turkel (1999); Qian, Zhang, and Li (2010). Figure 1. Wave structure of the approximate HLL Riemann
The preconditioned upwind schemes require the charac- solver.
teristic information of the resulting governing equations, so
the characteristic factor forms for matrices A =  E/ Q, 3.1. Spatial scheme
B =  F / Q and C =  G/ Q are needed. The uni-
A new approximate Riemann solver for incompressible
fied forms of A , B and C are given as follows:
flows is derived following the HLL scheme proposed by
Harten et al. (Harten, Lax, and van Leer 1983) and its mod-
0 2 kx 2 ky 2 kz ified form HLLC scheme proposed by Toro et al. (Toro,
kx + (1 )kx u 1 )ky u (1 )kz u
A,m =
ky (1 )kx v + (1 )ky v (1 )kz v ,
Spruce, and Speares 1994; Toro 1997) for compressible
flow simulations.
kz (1 )kx w (1 )ky w + (1 )kz w
(8)
in which 3.1.1. The HLL approximate Riemann solver for
incompressible flows
= kx u + ky v + kz w;
Harten, Lax, and van Leer (1983) introduced the following
kx = (m )x , i = 1, 2, 3;
approximate Riemann solver:
ky = (m )y , i = 1, 2, 3; (9)
kz = (m )z , i = 1, 2, 3;
UL , if x /t < SL ,
m = , , , m = 1, 2, 3.
U (x, t) = UHLL , if SL x t SR , (13)

UR , if x /t > SR ,
The eigenvalues of A,m , i.e., 1 , 2 , 3 , and 4 are
given, respectively, as where U is a general vector symbol like Q in (1), UHLL is
the integral average of the exact solution to the Riemann
1 = 2 = , problem between the slowest and fastest waves, SL and SR
3 = + =  + c  , (10) are the wave velocities perturbing the initial data states UL
4 = =  c  , and UR , respectively. Figure 1 shows the structure of this
approximate solution of the Riemann problem.
Provided that the signal speeds SL and SR are known,
where UHLL can be given by

 =
1
(2 ), SR UR SL U L + (FL FR )
(11) UHLL = , (14)
2 SR SL

and after some manipulation following Harten, Lax and van

Leers formula. The corresponding flux at the cell interface
   of the HLL scheme is then given by
c =  2 + 2 kx2 + ky2 + kz2 (12)
Fi+1
HLL
2 =

is c the preconditioned pseudo-acoustic speed. /

FL , if 0 < SL ,

SR FL SL FR + SL SR  1 (UR UL )
, if SL 0 SR ,

SR SL

3. Numerical schemes FR , if 0 > SR .
The semi-discretised finite difference method is used in this (15)
paper. First, the spatial derivatives are discretised while the
time derivative term remains continuous. Then, the implicit Being given an algorithm to compute the speeds SL and
LU-SGS algorithm is employed to march the equations in SR ,one can determine an approximate intercell flux. The
temporal to a steady-state condition. wave speeds SL and SR for the preconditioned systems in
404 Z. Qian and C.-H. Lee

this paper are estimated by t

SL S*
U *L SR
SL = min{L cL , R cR }, U *R
(16)
SR = max{L + cL , L + cL }.
UL UR
Following Harten, Lax and van Leer, the HLL scheme x
for the pseudo-compressible N-S equations can be derived.
The artificial speed of sound as in (12) is given by
Figure 2. Wave structure of the approximate HLLC Riemann
 solver.
 1  
cL,R = (2 )2 L,R
2
+ 2 kx2 + ky2 + kz2 . (17)
4
Following Toro, Spruce and Speares (Toro, Spruce, and
For incompressible flows, the two wave speeds always Speares 1994; Toro 1997), after some manipulation, the
satisfy that HLLC flux for the preconditioned system can be written
as
 c < 0,  + c > 0. (18)
Fi+1 2 =
HLLC
/
This means that the two approximate wave speeds SL FL , if 0 < SL ,


and SR always satisfy that FL = FL + SL  1 (UL UL ), if SL 0 < S ,
(21)
FR = FR + SR  1 (UR UL ), if
S 0 SR ,
SL < 0, SR > 0.
(19) FR , if 0 > SR ,

Consequently, the corresponding cell interface flux of where UL and UR denote to the integral averages between
the HLL scheme for incompressible flows can be simplified the shear wave and the left and right waves, respectively,
as which can be given by integrating over the control volumes
across each of the waves of speeds SL , S and SR . In (21),
SR FL SL FR + SL SR  1 (UR UL )
Fi+1/2 =
HLL
. (20)
SR SL
FL = FL + SL  1 (UL U L ), (22)
Note that this Riemann solver just consists of three
constant states separated by two waves. All intermediate FR = FL + S  1 (UR U L ), (23)
states separated by intermediate waves are lumped into the
single Uhll state without regardless of the spatial variations FR = FR + SR  1 (UR U R ). (24)
of the solution to the Riemann problem in the Star region,
so a shortcoming of the HLL scheme, with too serious The waves speeds SL and SR are given by (16), and the
dissipation, can be expected. speed of the contact discontinuity is S , which can be given
by
3.1.2. The HLLC approximate Riemann solver for
incompressible flows S = . (25)
As pointed out by Harten, Lax and van Leer themselves
(Harten, Lax, and van Leer 1983), overwhelming dissipa- Here conditions (22)(24) are three equations for the four
tion of the HLL Riemann solver may be alleviated by restor- unknown vectors UL , UR , FL and FR . The aim is to find
ing the missing waves. To circumvent this potential prob- the vectors UL and UR , so that the fluxes FL and FR can
lem, Toro, Spruce and Speares (Toro, Spruce, and Speares be determined from (22) and (24), respectively. We denote
1994; Toro 1997) proposed the so-called HLLC scheme, that
where C stands for contact. In the HLLC scheme, the miss-
ing middle waves are put back into the structure of the pL,R
approximate Riemann solver. UL,R = uL,R . (26)
Consider Figure 2, in which the complete structure of vL,R
the solution to the Riemann problem is depicted. As shown
in this figure, in addition to the slowest and fastest signal In (26), uL,R and vL,R mean the normal and tangential
speeds SL and SR , we introduce a middle wave of speed S , velocity of the Riemann problem at the intercell face sep-
corresponding to the shear wave with eigenvalue . arately. For incompressible flows, the following conditions
 International Journal of Computational Fluid Dynamics 405

must be guaranteed: 3.1.4. Viscous term computations and numerical

uL = uR = u ,
pL = pR = p ,
vL = vL , vR = vR .
Also for incompressible flows, the density is assumed to
be constant and the energy equation is decoupled from the
continuity and momentum equations, so the intermediate
pressure p and normal velocity u can be obtained from
the integration conditions across the two wave system, such
as (22) and (24) similar to the original HLL scheme for
compressible flow, which are given as
boundary conditions
The viscous terms of Equation (1) are discretised by the
(27) second-order central difference. The boundary conditions
imposed on the solid wall are the no-slip condition for
viscous flows, and the pressure on the wall is evaluated
by extrapolation from the interior points. For the far-field
boundary, the conditions are specified according to the di-
rection of the in-flow or the out-flow, where the velocities
are specified, and the pressure is extrapolated from the in-
terior nodes at the inflow boundary; whereas the pressure
is specified, and the velocities are extrapolated from the
interior nodes at the outflow boundary.

SR uR SL uL + (u0 uL + u2L + PL ) (u0 uR + u2R + PR )

u = , 3.2. Time advancement
SR SL
(28) The LU-SGS formulation proposed by Yoon and Jameson
(1988) is used, which is one of the most commonly used
SR pR SL pL + 2 uL 2 uR implicit methods for compressible flows simulations. We
p = . (29)
SR SL generalise the formulation to the preconditioned pseudo-
compressible N-S equations, and the details can be found
And we can also obtain that in reference Qian and Zhang (2012); Qian, Zhang, and Li
(2010).

(SL uL )vL + (v0 2 ) SL (pL pL )
vL = , (30)
SL uL 4. Numerical results
 2
(SR uR )vR + (v0 ) SR (pR pR ) Some validation tests are presented in this section, including
vR = . (31)
SR uR laminar flow over a flat plate, low Reynolds number flow
over a circular cylinder, high Reynolds turbulent flow over
In (28)(31), u0 and v0 are the velocities in the precon- the S809 airfoil with the two equations k SST turbulence
ditioner . model, and the three-dimensional flows through 90 curved
Since SL < 0 and SR > 0 all the way, the corresponding squared ducts. These cases are taken for comparisons with
intercell flux of the HLLC scheme for incompressible can exact analytic solutions or existing experimental data.
also be simplified as
 4.1. Laminar flow past flat plate
FL = FL + SL  1 (UL UL ), if 0 S ,
Fi+1/2 =
HLLC
FR = FR + SR  1 (UR UL ), if S < 0. The incompressible laminar flow over a flat plate is com-
(32) monly called a Blasius flow with an analytical similarity
solution. This test case is used to validate the capability
of the presently developed procedure for boundary layer
3.1.3. Second-order accurate interface values UL and flow simulation. The mesh is composed of 109 50 grid
UR points in the stream wise and wall normal direction, respec-
tively, clustered at the leading and trailing edges of the flat
In order to promote the accuracy, we employ the second-
plate. The computational region is stretched to the upper
order MUSCL scheme (van Leer 1979) in this study.
and upwind boundary of five times the length of the plate,
Accordingly, the left and right states are given respectively
and to the out flow boundary with six times the length.
by
The Reynolds number defined by the length of the plate is
 1.0 105 . The grid is clustered near the wall due to great
UL = Ui + L Ui , gradient in the boundary layer.
(33)
UR = Ui+1 R Ui+1 , The velocity profiles computed by the present HLL and
HLLC scheme are both plotted in Figure 3 together with
in which Ui = Ui Ui1 , denotes to the limiter func- the Blasius solution, where the abscissa y  = y Rex /x,
tion. In this paper, the minmod limiter is used unless spec- and the ordinate is the dimensionless velocity u. It is found
ified. that the velocity profile computed by the preconditioned
406 Z. Qian and C.-H. Lee

Figure 3. Velocity profiles of the laminar flat plate. Figure 4. Streamlines of the cylinder flow at Re = 40.

HLL scheme shows significant error due to the too much
numerical dissipation, however the present preconditioned
HLLC scheme is capable of providing numerical solutions
well consistent with the Blasius solution. Consequently, the
following test cases are all to be computed by the HLLC
scheme only.
4.2. Low Reynolds number flow over circular
cylinder
The low Reynolds number incompressible flow over a cir-
cular cylinder is a benchmark problem for incompressible
flows, for which many experimental and computational re-
sults can be utilised for comparison (Rogers and Kwak
1990; Tritton 1959; Contanceau and Bouard 1972). The
characteristics of the flow field are sensitive to the Reynolds
number. The case of Re = 40 is computed, and the flow ren-
ders as a pair of symmetric separated vortices. The mesh
used in this paper consists of a single gird zone with an
O-type topology, and is composed of 65 181 grid points
in the streamwise and wall normal direction, respectively,
with the first grid spacing of 0.005 times of the diameters
and stretching to the outer boundary of 20 diameters in the
normal direction. The same mesh also has been used in the
authors previous work (Zhang and Qian 2012).
The streamlines of the flow at Re = 40 computed by
the present HLLC scheme are depicted in Figure 4. The
separation length measured from the rear stagnation point
of the cylinder with cylinder diameter as a reference length,
the separation angle which defines the point of separation
from the body, and the drag coefficient with the free stream
dynamic pressure as a reference value in each case are also
shown in Table 1.They are consistent with the experimental
data (Tritton 1959; Contanceau and Bouard 1972) and the
computational results listed in Rogers and Kwak (1990).
The errors of the separation length and separation angle
relative to Contanceau and Bouard (1972) are 2.35% and
0.37%, respectively, and that of the drag coefficient relative

Table 1. Comparisons with experimental and other numerical results at Re = 40.

Length of separation (L/D) Angle of separation ( )

(errors relative to (errors relative to Drag coefficient (errors
Contanceau and Bouard 1972) Contanceau and Bouard 1972) relative to Tritton 1959)

Present 2.08 (2.35%) 53.3 (0.37%) 1.610 (2.42%)

Reference (Rogers and Kwak 2.29 ( + 7.51%) 53.0 (0.93%) 1.549 (6.12%)
1990) (Numerical)
Reference (Tritton 1959) 1.65
(experimental)
Reference (Contanceau and 2.13 53.5
Bouard 1972) (experimental)
 International Journal of Computational Fluid Dynamics 407

Figure 5. Mesh illustration for S809 airfoil. (a) Pressure. (b)

Turbulence viscosity ratio. (c) Turbulence kinetic energy.

Tritton (1959) is 2.42%. Moreover, all the errors of the

numerical results relative to the experimental data are less
than 5%, which demonstrates the reliability of the present
method.

4.3. High Reynolds turbulent flow around S809

airfoil
This test case of high Reynolds turbulent flow around S809
airfoil is chosen to show the reliability of the proposed
scheme for turbulent flow simulation. This airfoil is de-
signed especially for wind turbine applications, the thick-
ness ratio of which is 21%. A 0.6 m chord length model
of this airfoil has been tested in a 1.8 m 2.5 m low tur-
bulence wind tunnel (Somers 1997) in which the Reynolds
number is 2.0 106 and the angle of attack is 9.22 .
As shown in Figure 5, the mesh consists of a single
gird zone with an O-type topology, and is composed of
307 120 grid points in the stream wise and wall nor-
mal direction, respectively, with the first grid spacing of
1.0 105 chord length and stretching to the outer bound-
ary of 20 diameters. The same mesh has also been used
in the authors previous work (Qian and Zhang 2012).
The Menters k SST turbulence model (Menter 1993),
which takes the advantages of thek model (Abid 1993) Figure 6. Contours of pressure, turbulence viscosity ratio and
and Wilcoxs k model (Wilcox 1993), is utilised, be- turbulence kinetic intensity for the flow past S809 airfoil.
cause this model excludes the sensitivity to the inflow tur-
bulence intensity and retains the numerical stability near
the wall.
In Figure 6, the computed contours of pressure, turbu- data (Somers 1997) is depicted in Figure 7, and good agree-
lence viscosity ratio and turbulence kinetic intensity are ment is shown. The pressure suction peak is captured much
shown separately in (a)(c). The comparison of the com- better by the preconditioned HLLC scheme even than the
puted wall pressure coefficient and the experimental test high-order compact scheme in Qian and Zhang (2012).
408 Z. Qian and C.-H. Lee

Figure 7. Comparison of the computed and experimental wall Figure 8. Mesh illustration for the square duct.
pressure coefficients.

4.4. Three-dimensional flows through 90 curved
squared ducts
Ducts with rectangular cross-sections are very frequently
used in many engineering applications, such as aircraft in-
lets, turbomachinery blade passages, and wind tunnel test
sections. The flow in ducts of rectangular cross-section with
strong curvature has the distinguished characteristics of the
generation of streamwise second vortex and redistribution
of the streamwise velocity in the radial direction caused by
the centrifugal forces. This section takes the flow through a
strongly curved 90 square bend duct as a three-dimensional
test case and compares the numerical results by the present
scheme and the experimental test given by Humphrey, Tay-
lor, and Whitelaw (1977).
The radius curvature of the inner wall and the outer
wall are 1.8 and 2.8 duct sides, respectively. The Reynolds
number, based on the duct side and average inflow veloc-
ity is 790. Numerical solutions are performed on meshes
with 49 49 points in the cross section and 95 points in the
streamwise direction. The grid system is shown in Figure 8.
For the present grid, the inflow section before the bend is
set to a length of 40.0 duct sides, and the outflow section
downstream of the bend is also set to a length of 40.0 duct
sides. The no-slip condition is imposed on the solid wall
and the pressure on the wall is evaluated via an extrapola-
tion from the interior points. At the inflow, a uniform flow
velocity is prescribed and the pressure is extrapolated from
the interior. At the outflow, the pressure is given, and the
velocities are extrapolated from the interior points.
The comparisons of the computed streamwise velocity
profiles at the mid-span of the plane of the 0 , and 90
bend sections by the present preconditioned scheme with
the experimental data of Humphrey, Taylor, and Whitelaw
(1977) are depicted in Figure 9. It is found that the numerical
results of the present scheme are in good agreement with
the experimental data.

Figure 9. Comparison of the computed streamwise velocity profiles on the midspan by the present scheme with the experimental results.
(a) The plane of the 0 bend section. (b) The plane of the 90 bend section.
 International Journal of Computational Fluid Dynamics
Table 2. Comparisons of the CPU time.
Computer time (s)
mesh Present scheme Roe scheme
17 17 43 1316.182 1776.703
33 33 63 7125.691 10,093.047
49 49 95 24373.306 35,165.641
Figure 10. Convergence history.
The convergence history of the present scheme and
the Roe-type scheme for this test case at the mesh sys-
tem with 49 49 95 grid points in each direction is
shown in Figure 10. It can be seen that both the two
schemes can obtain convergent results and also the con-
vergence rates are similar, while the present preconditioned
HLLC scheme needs less computer time than the Roe-type
scheme.
A sequence of meshes, namely, with 17 17 43,
33 33 63, and 49 49 95 grid points are used to
investigate the computational efficiency of the present
scheme. The computation using the second-order Roe-type
scheme proposed in the authors previous work (Qian,
Zhang, and Li 2010) is also performed on the same grid
sequence. Table 2 records the consumption of CPU time
for each computation with the same total iteration step
number of 8000. It is found that in the present mesh se-
quence, the proposed preconditioned HLLC scheme takes
30% CPU time less than the previous Roe-type scheme
(Qian, Zhang, and Li 2010). It is clear to see the high ef-
ficiency in applying the preconditioned HLLC scheme for
this three-dimensional case.
409
5. Conclusions
This paper derives the preconditioned HLL and HLLC
finite difference scheme for the incompressible flow by
virtue of the pseudo-compressibility procedure. The pro-
posed scheme does not rely on the homogeneous assump-
tion of the inviscid flux, so the proposed approximate Rie-
mann solver is more proper and general for incompressible
flow simulation. The preconditioned technique is used to
accelerate the convergence, and the implicit LU-SGS time
integration method is adopted to integrate temporally. The
reliability of the present procedure is demonstrated by ap-
plications to laminar flow over a flat plate, low Reynolds
number flow over a circular cylinder, high Reynolds turbu-
lent flow over the S809 airfoil, and the three-dimensional
flows through 90 curved squared ducts. It is found that
the numerical results of the present algorithm are in
good agreement with theoretical solutions or experimental
data.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Funding
This work is supported by the National Natural Science Founda-
tion of China [no.11202199].
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