A Meshless Local Petrov-Galerkin Method for Fluid Dynamics and Heat Transfer Applications

Abstract

The meshless local Petrov-Galerkin method has been modified to develop a meshless numerical technique to solve computational fluid dynamics and heat transfer problems. The theory behind the proposed technique, hereafter called “the meshless control volume method,” is explained and a number of examples illustrating the implementation of the method is presented. In this study, the technique is applied for one- and two-dimensional transient heat conduction as well as one- and two-dimensional advection-diffusion problems. Compared to other methods, including the exact solution, the results appear to be highly accurate for the considered cases. Being a meshless technique, the control volumes are arbitrarily chosen and possess simple shapes, which, contrary to the existing control volume methods, can overlap. The number of points within each control volume and, therefore, the degree of interpolation, can be different throughout the considered computational domain. Since the control volumes have simple shapes, the integrals can be readily evaluated.