A transmission line modelling (TLM) method for steady-state convection-diffusion

This paper describes how the lossy transmission line modelling (TLM) method for diffusion can be extended to solve the convection–diffusion equation. The method is based on the correspondence between the convection–diffusion equation and the equation for the voltage on a lossy transmission line with properties varying exponentially over space. It is unconditionally stable and converges rapidly to highly accurate steady-state solutions for a wide range of Peclet numbers from low to high. The method solves the non-conservative form of the convection–diffusion equation but it is shown how it can be modified to solve the conservative form. Under transient conditions the TLM scheme exhibits significant numerical diffusion and numerical convection leading to poor accuracy, but both these errors go to zero as a solution approaches steady state. Copyright q 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd