A Fifth-Order Combined Compact Difference Scheme for Stokes Flow on Polar Geometries

Abstract

Incompressible flows with zero Reynolds number can be modeled by the Stokes equations. When numerically solving the Stokes flow in stream-vorticity formulation with high-order accuracy, it will be important to solve both the stream function and velocity components with the high-order accuracy simultaneously. In this work, we will develop a fifth-order spectral/combined compact difference (CCD) method for the Stokes equation in stream-vorticity formulation on the polar geometries, including a unit disk and an annular domain. We first use the truncated Fourier series to derive a coupled system of singular ordinary differential equations for the Fourier coefficients, then use a shifted grid to handle the coordinate singularity without pole condition. More importantly, a three-point CCD scheme is developed to solve the obtained system of differential equations. Numerical results are presented to show that the proposed spectral/CCD method can obtain all physical quantities in the Stokes flow, including the stream function and vorticity function as well as all velocity components, with fifth-order accuracy, which is much more accurate and efficient than low-order methods in the literature.