3D COMPUTATION OF UNSTEADY-FLOW PAST A SPHERE WITH A PARALLEL FINITE-ELEMENT METHOD

We present parallel computation of 3D, unsteady, incompressible flow p ast a sphere. The Navier-Stokes equations of incompressible flows are solved using a stabilized finite element formulation. Equal-order inte rpolation functions are used for velocity and pressure. The second-ord er accurate time-marching within the solution process is carried out i n an implicit fashion. The coupled, nonlinear equations generated at e ach time step are solved using an element-vector-based iteration techn ique. The computed value of the primary frequency associated with vort ex shedding is in close agreement with experimental measurements. The computation was performed on the Thinking Machines CM-5.