Numerical Simulations of Viscoelastic Flows Using the Discontinuous Galerkin Method

In this work, we develop a method for solving viscoelastic fluid flows using the Navier-Stokes equations coupled with the Oldroyd-B model. We solve the Navier-Stokes equations in skew-symmetric form using the mixed finite element method, and we solve the Oldroyd-B model using the discontinuous Galerkin method. The Crank-Nicolson scheme is used for the temporal discretization of the Navier-Stokes equations in order to achieve a second-order accuracy in time, while the optimal third-order total-variation diminishing Runge-Kutta scheme is used for the temporal discretization of the Oldroyd-B equation. The overall accuracy in time is therefore limited to second-order due to the Crank-Nicolson scheme; however, a third-order Runge-Kutta scheme is implemented for greater stability over lower order Runge-Kutta schemes. We test our numerical method using the 2D cavity flow benchmark problem and compare results generated with those found in literature while discussing the influence of mesh refinement on suppressing oscillations in the polymer stress.