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Some basic notations from tensor analysis

  In the ISNaS incompressible code we are dealing with curvilinear boundary fitted grids. These grids are mapped (by an unknown transformation) onto a rectangular computational grid. Figure 2.1 gives a typical example of the mapping from physical (i.e. curvilinear) to computational grid.

  
Figure 2.1: Boundary fitted co-ordinates and computational grid

All computations are performed in the computational grid and hence the differential equations are transformed from physical grid to computational grid. The resulting solution is transformed backwards.
In the sequel we shall use the following notations:

The mapping T from Cartesian to computational domain is given by

 

We assume that the Jacobian J:

 

is unequal to zero.
We define the covariant base vector as the tangent vector to the surface , hence

 

The subscript is placed between parentheses to emphasize that is not a component but one of the three base vectors .
Contravariant base vectors are defined as normal vectors to the = constant surfaces:

 

It can be shown that

 

where denotes the outer product.
The correspondence between vector and tensor notation for a rank one tensor is expressed by

 

For a tensor of rank two the correspondence between the two notations is given by, for example in the case of a mixed tensor:

 

The covariant and contravariant components of a vector can be obtained from

 

For a rank two tensor we have for example

 





Tatiana Tijanova
Wed Mar 26 10:36:42 MET 1997