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Finite Volume Method

The finite volume method is a numerical method for representing and evaluating partial differential equations as algebraic equations. It works by dividing the domain into finite volumes and integrating the governing equations over each volume. Conservation laws can then be written by evaluating fluxes at the boundaries between volumes, making the method conservative.

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251 views4 pages

Finite Volume Method

The finite volume method is a numerical method for representing and evaluating partial differential equations as algebraic equations. It works by dividing the domain into finite volumes and integrating the governing equations over each volume. Conservation laws can then be written by evaluating fluxes at the boundaries between volumes, making the method conservative.

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Finitevolumemethod

FromWikipedia,thefreeencyclopedia

Thefinitevolumemethod(FVM)isamethodforrepresentingandevaluatingpartialdifferentialequationsin
theformofalgebraicequations[LeVeque,2002Toro,1999].Similartothefinitedifferencemethodorfinite
elementmethod,valuesarecalculatedatdiscreteplacesonameshedgeometry."Finitevolume"referstothe
smallvolumesurroundingeachnodepointonamesh.Inthefinitevolumemethod,volumeintegralsinapartial
differentialequationthatcontainadivergencetermareconvertedtosurfaceintegrals,usingthedivergence
theorem.Thesetermsarethenevaluatedasfluxesatthesurfacesofeachfinitevolume.Becausetheflux
enteringagivenvolumeisidenticaltothatleavingtheadjacentvolume,thesemethodsareconservative.
Anotheradvantageofthefinitevolumemethodisthatitiseasilyformulatedtoallowforunstructuredmeshes.
Themethodisusedinmanycomputationalfluiddynamicspackages.

Contents
1
2
3
4
5
6

1Dexample
Generalconservationlaw
Seealso
References
Furtherreading
Externallinks

1Dexample
Considerasimple1Dadvectionproblemdefinedbythefollowingpartialdifferentialequation

Here,
representsthestatevariableand
representsthefluxorflowof .
Conventionally,positive representsflowtotherightwhilenegative representsflowtotheleft.Ifwe
assumethatequation(1)representsaflowingmediumofconstantarea,wecansubdividethespatialdomain,
,intofinitevolumesorcellswithcellcentresindexedas .Foraparticularcell, ,wecandefinethevolume
averagevalueof

andattime

where

attime

and

,as

as,

and

representlocationsoftheupstreamanddownstreamfacesoredgesrespectivelyofthe

cell.
Integratingequation(1)intime,wehave:

where

Toobtainthevolumeaverageof

attime

anddividetheresultby

,weintegrate

overthecellvolume,

,i.e.

Weassumethat iswellbehavedandthatwecanreversetheorderofintegration.Also,recallthatflowis
normaltotheunitareaofthecell.Now,sinceinonedimension
,wecanapplythedivergence
theorem,i.e.

,andsubstituteforthevolumeintegralofthedivergencewiththevaluesof

evaluatedatthecellsurface(edges

where

and

)ofthefinitevolumeasfollows:

Wecanthereforederiveasemidiscretenumericalschemefortheaboveproblemwithcellcentresindexedas ,
andwithcelledgefluxesindexedas

wherevaluesfortheedgefluxes,

,bydifferentiating(6)withrespecttotimetoobtain:

,canbereconstructedbyinterpolationorextrapolationofthecell

averages.Equation(7)isexactforthevolumeaveragesi.e.,noapproximationshavebeenmadeduringits
derivation.
Thismethodcanalsobeappliedtoa2Dsituationbyconsideringthenorthandsouthfacesalongwiththeeast
andwestfacesaroundanode.

Generalconservationlaw
Wecanalsoconsiderthegeneralconservationlawproblem,representedbythefollowingPDE,

Here, representsavectorofstatesand representsthecorrespondingfluxtensor.Againwecansubdivide


thespatialdomainintofinitevolumesorcells.Foraparticularcell, ,wetakethevolumeintegraloverthe
totalvolumeofthecell, ,whichgives,

Onintegratingthefirsttermtogetthevolumeaverageandapplyingthedivergencetheoremtothesecond,this
yields

where representsthetotalsurfaceareaofthecelland isaunitvectornormaltothesurfaceandpointing


outward.So,finally,weareabletopresentthegeneralresultequivalentto(8),i.e.

Again,valuesfortheedgefluxescanbereconstructedbyinterpolationorextrapolationofthecellaverages.
Theactualnumericalschemewilldependuponproblemgeometryandmeshconstruction.MUSCL
reconstructionisoftenusedinhighresolutionschemeswhereshocksordiscontinuitiesarepresentinthe
solution.
Finitevolumeschemesareconservativeascellaverageschangethroughtheedgefluxes.Inotherwords,one
cell'slossisanothercell'sgain!

Seealso
Finiteelementmethod
Fluxlimiter
Godunov'sscheme
Godunov'stheorem
Highresolutionscheme
KIVA(Software)
MITGeneralCirculationModel
MUSCLscheme
SergeiK.Godunov
Totalvariationdiminishing
Finitevolumemethodforunsteadyflow

References
Eymard,R.Gallout,T.R.Herbin,R.(2000)ThefinitevolumemethodHandbookofNumerical
Analysis,Vol.VII,2000,p.7131020.Editors:P.G.CiarletandJ.L.Lions.
LeVeque,Randall(2002),FiniteVolumeMethodsforHyperbolicProblems,CambridgeUniversity
Press.
Toro,E.F.(1999),RiemannSolversandNumericalMethodsforFluidDynamics,SpringerVerlag.

Furtherreading
Patankar,SuhasV.(1980),NumericalHeatTransferandFluidFlow,Hemisphere.
Hirsch,C.(1990),NumericalComputationofInternalandExternalFlows,Volume2:Computational
MethodsforInviscidandViscousFlows,Wiley.
Laney,CulbertB.(1998),ComputationalGasDynamics,CambridgeUniversityPress.
LeVeque,Randall(1990),NumericalMethodsforConservationLaws,ETHLecturesinMathematics
Series,BirkhauserVerlag.
Tannehill,JohnC.,etal.,(1997),ComputationalFluidmechanicsandHeatTransfer,2ndEd.,Taylor

andFrancis.
Wesseling,Pieter(2001),PrinciplesofComputationalFluidDynamics,SpringerVerlag.

Externallinks
Thefinitevolumemethod(http://www.cmi.univmrs.fr/~herbin/PUBLI/bookevol.pdf)byR.Eymard,T
GalloutandR.Herbin,updateofthearticlepublishedinHandbookofNumericalAnalysis,2000
Rbenknig,Oliver."TheFiniteVolumeMethod(FVM)Anintroduction".Archivedfromtheoriginal
on20091002.,availableundertheGFDL.
FiPy:AFiniteVolumePDESolverUsingPython(http://www.ctcms.nist.gov/fipy/)fromNIST.
CLAWPACK(http://depts.washington.edu/clawpack/):asoftwarepackagedesignedtocompute
numericalsolutionstohyperbolicpartialdifferentialequationsusingawavepropagationapproach
Retrievedfrom"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Finite_volume_method&oldid=716185660"
Categories: Numericaldifferentialequations Computationalfluiddynamics Numericalanalysis
Thispagewaslastmodifiedon20April2016,at12:31.
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