For strongly nonorthogonal grids, the convergence difficulty is often encou
ntered in the SIMPLE method unless very low relaxation factors are adopted.
This is because that the cross derivatives of pressure corrections are usu
ally neglected in deriving the pressure-correction equation. In this study,
an approximate treatment is proposed to deal with the cross derivatives in
the pressure-correction equation. Computations are performed for various l
aminar flows in a nonorthogonal cavity and the turbulent flows through the
compressor cascades. It is found that the convergence difficulty encountere
d in the SIMPLE method for strongly nonorthogonal grids can be overcome whe
n the SIMPLEC method is employed. In addition, when the present approximate
treatment for the cross derivatives is adopted in the SIMPLEC method, the
convergence rate can be speeded up in comparison with the original SIMPLEC
method. In some cases, the CPU time can be decreased by more than 60%. The
computational results are also compared with the numerical results of other
s and the available experimental data.