Computation of thermal convection with a large temperature difference

A general and robust method for the computation of flow with a large temperature difference is presented which requires that the flow velocity be in the subsonic range. The MAC method is extended to compressible flows for small pressure differences to solve the Navier-Stokes equations, and is coupled with a higher-order upwind scheme which makes the computation very stable. The method is used to solve the two-dimensional flow problems of a channel flow with part of the wall heated at 1000 C, an inflow temperature of 15 C, and a Reynolds number of 1839, and a flow past a heated cylinder where the Reynolds number is 2000