Effects of mesh refinement, time step size and numerical scheme on the computational modeling of temperature evolution during natural-convection heating

A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis includes creating geometry, dividing it into elements, discretizing governing equations and solving with suitable numerical schemes. Refining mesh and lowering time step size increase accuracy. However, this may not always give the best result since convergence depends upon parameters of time step size, mesh resolution and numerical scheme. Therefore, the objective of this study was to determine the effects of these on the accuracy of a CFD solution. For this purpose, canning example was used, and results obtained with ANSYS CFX (v12.1.) were experimentally validated. Effects of time step size, mesh resolution and numerical scheme on temperature and velocity field evolution were determined. Mesh refinement affected temperature distribution significantly and surprisingly led to less accuracy. The reasons for this behavior were presented and explained comprehensively. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.