Application of a fractional-step method to incompressible Navier-Stokes equation

A numerical method for computing three dimensional, time dependent incompressible flows is presented. The method is based on a fractional step, or time-splitting, scheme in conjunction with the approximate-factorization technique. The use of velocity boundary conditions for the intermediate velocity field leads to inconsistent numerical solutions. Appropriate boundary conditions for the intermediate velocity field are derived and tested. Numerical solutions for flow inside a driven cavity and over a backward-facing step are presented and compared with experimenal data and other numerical results.