Vorticity vector-potential method for 3D viscous incompressible flows in time-dependent curvilinear coordinates

E and Liu [J. Comput. Phys. 138 (1997) 57–82] put forward a finite difference method for 3D viscous incompressible flows in the vorticity-vector potential formulation on non-staggered grids. In this paper, we will extend this method to the case of flows in the presence of a deformable surface. By use of two kinds of surface differential operators, the implementation of boundary conditions on a plane is generalized to a curved smooth surface with given velocity distribution, whether this be an inflow/outflow interface or a curved wall. To deal with the irregular and varying physical domain, time-dependent curvilinear coordinates are constructed and the corresponding tensor analysis is adopted in deriving the component form of the governing equations. Therefore, the equations can be discretized and solved in a regular and fixed parametric domain. Numerical results are presented for a 3D lid-driven cavity with a deforming surface and a 3D duct flow with a deforming boundary. A new way to validate numerical simulations is proposed based on an expression for the rate-of-strain tensor on a deformable surface.