Projection and Quasi-Compressibility Methods for Solving the Incompressible Navier-Stokes Equations

Projection methods had been introduced in the late sixties by A. Chorin and R. Teman to decouple the computation of velocity and pressure within the time-stepping for solving the nonstationary Navier-Stokes equations. Despite the good performance of projection methods in practical computations, their success remained somewhat mysterious as the operator splitting implicitly introduces a nonphysical boundary condition for the pressure. The objectives of this monograph are twofold. First, a rigorous error analysis is presented for existing projection methods by means of relating them to so-called quasi-compressibility methods (e.g. penalty method, pressure stabilzation method, etc.). This approach highlights the intrinsic error mechanisms of these schemes and explains the reasons for their limitations. Then, in the second part, more sophisticated new schemes are constructed and analyzed which are exempted from most of the deficiencies of the classical projection and quasi-compressibility methods. '... this book should be mandatory reading for applied mathematicians specializing in computational fluid dynamics.' J.-L.Guermond. Mathematical Reviews, Ann Arbor