COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICS:                                       FVM: Interpolation Schemes
Lecture 18
                FINITE VOLUME INTERPOLATION SCHEMES
    18.1 INTERPOLATION SCHEMES
    The approximation of surface and volume integrals may require values of the variable at
    locations other than the computational nodes of the CV. Values at these locations are
    obtained using interpolation formulae. There are various possibilities, and we mention only a
    few of these in this lecture. For further details on various interpolation schemes, especially
    the total variation diminishing (TVD) schemes used for convection dominated problems, see
    Versteeg and Malalasekera (2007) and Chung (2010).
    18.2 UPWIND INTERPOLATION
    The upwind interpolation (UDS) for approximating the value of a variable at the east face of
    a control volume is given by
                 f       if (v  n)e  0
            fe   P                                                                         (18.1)
                  fE     if (v  n)e  0
    This interpolation scheme is equivalent to using a backward or forward finite difference
    approximation (depending on the flow direction). It is first order accurate, and is numerically
    diffusive with a coefficient of numerical diffusion  enum  (  u )e x / 2.
    18.3 LINEAR INTERPOLATION (CDS)
    We can approximate the value of the variable at CV face centre by linear interpolation of the
    values at two nearest computational nodes. Thus, at location ‘e’ on a Cartesian grid, the
    variable value is approximated by
                                                       xe  xP
            f e  f E e  f P (1  e ),       e                                            (18.2)
                                                       xE  xP
    The linear interpolation is equivalent to the use of central difference formula of the first order
    derivative, and hence, this scheme is also termed as central difference scheme (CDS). This
    scheme is second order accurate, and may produce oscillatory solutions (Ferziger and Peric,
    2003).
    18.4 QUADRATIC UPWIND INTERPOLATION (QUICK)
    A quadratic upwind interpolation (QUICK) scheme can be derived using polynomial fitting.
    The QUICK interpolation on a uniform Cartesian grid is given by
                            6        3      1
                     e  U  D  UU                                                      (18.3)
                            8        8      8
Dr K M Singh, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee                      NPTEL                   18.1
COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICS:                                  FVM: Interpolation Schemes
    where D, U and UU denote the downstream, the first upstream and the second upstream node
    respectively (E, P, and W or P, E and EE depending on the flow direction). QUICK scheme is
    third order accurate, but prone to oscillations.
    REFERENCES/FURTHER READING
    Chung, T. J. (2010). Computational Fluid Dynamics. 2nd Ed., Cambridge University Press,
    Cambridge, UK.
    Ferziger, J. H. And Perić, M. (2003). Computational Methods for Fluid Dynamics. Springer.
    Versteeg, H. K. and Malalasekera, W. M. G. (2007). Introduction to Computational Fluid
    Dynamics: The Finite Volume Method. Second Edition (Indian Reprint) Pearson Education.
Dr K M Singh, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee                 NPTEL                 18.2