Isogeometric Analysis of the Navier-Stokes equations with Taylor-Hood B-spline elements

This paper presents our numerical results of the application of Isogeometric Analysis (IGA) to the velocity–pressure formulation of the steady state as well as to the unsteady incompressible Navier–Stokes equations. For the approximation of the velocity and pressure fields, LBB compatible B-spline spaces are used which can be regarded as smooth generalizations of Taylor–Hood pairs of finite element spaces. The single-step θ-scheme is used for the discretization in time. The lid-driven cavity flow, in addition to its regularized version and flow around cylinder, are considered in two dimensions as model problems in order to investigate the numerical properties of the scheme.