Linearized stability analysis of staggered‐grid difference schemes for multidimensional viscous incompressible flows

This paper presents a systematic linearized (frozen coefficient) von Neumann stability analysis for various staggered‐grid marker‐and‐cell (MAC) finite difference schemes for solving viscous incompressible fluid flows. These schemes employ the primitive variables formulation and require the velocity field to be divergent free at every time step. It is illustrated that the stability results for staggered‐grid MAC schemes are similar to that for the multidimensional convective‐diffusion equation with constant coefficients. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.