A fourth-order approximate projection method for the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations on locally-refined periodic domains

In this follow-up of our previous work [30], the author proposes a high-order semi-implicit method for numerically solving the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations on locally-refined periodic domains. Fourth-order finite-volume stencils are employed for spatially discretizing various operators in the context of structured adaptive mesh refinement (AMR). Time integration adopts a fourth-order, semi-implicit, additive Runge–Kutta method to treat the non-stiff convection term explicitly and the stiff diffusion term implicitly. The divergence-free condition is fulfilled by an approximate projection operator. Altogether, these components yield a simple algorithm for simulating incompressible viscous flows on periodic domains with fourth-order accuracies both in time and in space. Results of numerical tests show that the proposed method is superior to previous second-order methods in terms of accuracy and efficiency. A major contribution of this work is the analysis of a fourth-order approximate projection operator.