Discretization Error Estimation in Subsonic, Transonic and Supersonic Flows of an Inviscid Fluid Over a Bump

Abstract This paper presents a solution verification exercise for the simulation of subsonic, transonic and supersonic flows of an inviscid fluid over a circular arc (bump). Numerical simulations are performed with a pressure-based, single-phase compressible flow solver. Sets of geometrically similar grids covering a wide range of refinement ratios have been generated. The goal of these grids is twofold: obtain a reference solution from power series expansion fits applied to the finest grids; check the numerical uncertainties obtained from coarse grids that do not guarantee monotonic convergence of the quantities of interest. The results show that even with very fine grids it is not straightforward to define a reference solution from power series expansions. The level of discretization errors required to obtain reliable reference solutions implies iterative errors reduced to machine accuracy, which may be extremely time consuming even in two-dimensional inviscid flows. Quantitative assessment of the estimated uncertainties for coarse grids depends on the selected reference solution.