A moving unstructured staggered mesh method for the simulation of incompressible free-surface flows

A new moving staggered mesh discretization for the numerical simulation of incompressible flow problems involving free-surfaces is presented. The method uses the staggered mesh to obtain speed and conservation properties. Mesh motion provides a high quality mesh in the interior and detailed resolution of the free-surface motion on the surface. Mesh flipping allows for optimal mesh connectivity to be maintained. The method uses an exact projection procedure which reduces the number of unknowns as well as satisfying the continuity constraint without solving a pressure Poisson equation. The implementation of surface tension forces in the staggered mesh framework is discussed. The resulting method is tested against analytical solutions for liquid sloshing and free-surface channel flow. It is also demonstrated on the cases of droplet collision, three-dimensional sloshing, and turbulence next to a free-surface. 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. AMS: 65P10; 76D05; 76M25