Boundary conditions for finite element simulations of convective flows with artificial boundaries

Published in Int. Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering Vol. 39 (6), pp. 1053-1071, 1996
doi: 10.1002/(SICI)1097-0207(19960330)39:6<1053::AID-NME896>3.0.CO;2-N

Abstract

We examine the use of natural boundary conditions and conditions of the Sommerfeld type for finite element simulations of convective transport in viscous incompressible flows. We show that natural boundary conditions are superior in the sense that they always provide a correct boundary condition, as opposed to the Sommerfeld‐type conditions, which can lead to a singular formulation and a great loss of accuracy. For the Navier–Stokes equations, the natural boundary conditions must be combined with a simple method to eliminate perturbations on the pressure at the open boundary, which is the source of most errors.