This book presents different formulations of the equations governing incompressible viscous flows, in the form needed for developing numerical solution procedures. The conditions required to satisfy the no-slip boundary conditions in the various formulations are discussed in detail. Rather than focussing on a particular spatial discretization method, the text provides a unitary view of several methods currently in use for the numerical solution of incompressible Navier-Stokes equations, using either finite differences, finite elements or spectral approximations. For each formulation, a complete statement of the mathematical problem is provided, comprising the various boundary, possibly integral, and initial conditions, suitable for any theoretical and/or computational development of the governing equations. The text is suitable for courses in fluid mechanics and computational fluid dynamics. It covers that part of the subject matter dealing with the equations for incompressible viscous flows and their determination by means of numerical methods. A substantial portion of the book contains new results and unpublished material.

Recently there has been substantial interest in least-squares finite element methods for velocity-vorticity-pressure formulations of the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations. The main cause for this interest is the fact that algorithms for the resulting discrete equations can be devised which require the solution of only symmetric, positive definite systems of algebraic equations. On the other hand, it is well-documented that methods using the vorticity as a primary variable often yield very poor approximations. Thus, here we study the accuracy of these methods through a series of computational experiments, and also comment on theoretical error estimates. It is found, despite the failure of standard methods for deriving error estimates, that computational evidence suggests that these methods are, at the least, nearly optimally accurate. Thus, in addition to the desirable matrix properties yielded by least-squares methods, one also obtains accurate approximations. Bochev, Pavel B. and Gunzburger, Max D. Glenn Research Center NCC3-233; RTOP 505-90-5K...