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4.4 Pressure-velocity coupling<br />
4.4.1 SIMPLE algorithm<br />
– 4.24 –<br />
When solving the momentum equation for velocity, the pressure is unknown and an<br />
estimated value, p � , is firstly used instead. In general, the velocity that is obtained does<br />
not satisfy the continuity equation. A correction to the estimated pressure is added and a<br />
new solution is sought for the new velocity. This procedure is repeated until it gives<br />
pressure and velocity fields satisfying not only the momentum equation but also the<br />
continuity equation. An iterative solution procedure known as SIMPLE (Semi-Implicit<br />
Method for Pressure-Linked Equation) method (Patankar and Spalding, 1972) is widely<br />
used for this velocity-pressure computation. The method requires velocity and discharge<br />
at cell faces, which are not immediately available with the use of non-staggered grids in<br />
the present model. The interpolation technique of Rhie-and-Chow (Rhie and Chow, 1983)<br />
solves this problem. The technique gives interpolated velocity at cell faces from the nodal<br />
values. The standard SIMPLE algorithm is then used to perform the pressure correction.<br />
This section gives some details of the procedure, which follows the derivation given by<br />
Patankar (Patankar and Spalding, 1972; Versteeg and Malalasekera, 1995; Ferziger and<br />
Peric, 1997).<br />
In the iteration ���� ��1, the discretized momentum equation, Eq. 4.52 with � = u, v, w,<br />
can be rewritten as:<br />
a ˜ Pui,P ��<br />
�<br />
��1 ��1<br />
� anbui,nb nb<br />
� ˜ b � 1<br />
� V �p<br />
P<br />
��1 �� ��<br />
��<br />
�� �xi ��<br />
�� P<br />
(4.53)<br />
where the symbols u i and xi are used to denote the Cartesian components of the velocity<br />
and direction, ui � u, v, w and xi � x, y, z , respectively. Note that the pressure gradient<br />
��<br />
in the above expression has intentionally been extracted from the source term, �� b , for a<br />
reason that will be evidenced later ( ˜ b in Eq. 4.53 is thus not exactly the same as that in<br />
Eq. 4.52).<br />
The coefficients a ˜ P , anb , and the source terms, ˜ b , are functions of the known variables<br />
either at the precedent iteration, �� �, or time step, n. For practical solutions of Eq. 4.53,<br />
since there are only 3 equations for 4 unknowns, the pressure p is temporarily fixed at its<br />
initial value. The following system of equations is solved in the first stage:<br />
˜<br />
a P u i,P<br />
�<br />
� �<br />
� a nbui,nb nb<br />
� ˜<br />
b � V P<br />
�<br />
��<br />
��<br />
��<br />
��<br />
�p �<br />
��<br />
�xi ��<br />
P<br />
(4.54a)<br />
�� p� � p � (4.54b)<br />
The estimated pressure, p � , and the velocities obtained from this pressure, u � , v � ,w � , are<br />
of course to be corrected: