Assessment of three preconditioning schemes for solution of the two‐dimensional Euler equations at low Mach number flows

Three preconditioners proposed by Eriksson, Choi and Merkel, and Turkel are implemented in a 2D upwind Euler flow solver on unstructured meshes. The mathematical formulations of these preconditioning schemes for different sets of primitive variables are drawn, and their eigenvalues and eigenvectors are compared with each other. For this purpose, these preconditioning schemes are expressed in a unified formulation. A cell‐centered finite volume Roe's method is used for the discretization of the preconditioned Euler equations. The accuracy and performance of these preconditioning schemes are examined by computing steady low Mach number flows over a NACA0012 airfoil and a two‐element NACA4412–4415 airfoil for different conditions. The study shows that these preconditioning schemes greatly enhance the accuracy and convergence rate of the solution of low Mach number flows. The study indicates that the preconditioning methods implemented provide nearly the same results in accuracy; however, they give different performances in convergence rate. It is demonstrated that although the convergence rate of steady solutions is almost independent of the choice of primitive variables and the structure of eigenvectors and their orthogonality, the condition number of the system of equations plays an important role, and it determines the convergence characteristics of solutions. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.