FINITE-VOLUME MULTIGRID CALCULATION OF NATURAL-CONVECTION FLOWS ON UNSTRUCTURED GRIDS

This article presents details and performance of a pressure-based mult igrid procedure for natural-convection fluid flows in complex geometri es. A control-volume finite-element method using triangular elements i s employed to discretize the governing equations. The multigrid techni que provides rapid convergence of the numerical solution. Three differ ent geometries are investigated, and the performance of the method at several grid densities and Rayleigh numbers is reported. Also, represe ntative flow fields and temperature contours are presented.