The cell-based smoothed finite element method for viscoelastic fluid flows using fractional-step schemes.

• CS-FEM is applied to the numerical simulation of viscoelastic fluid flow for the first time. • The gradient smoothing for viscoelastic fluid flow is arbitrary within each smoothing cell. • Two smoothed CBS schemes are presented to solve the viscoelastic equations. • The cell-based smoothing procedure is used to evaluate the viscoelastic fluid drag. This paper generalizes the cell-based smoothed finite element method (CS-FEM) to viscoelastic fluid flows under the fractional-step umbrella. The characteristic-based split (CBS) scheme is employed to decouple the Navier–Stokes equations and the Oldroyd-B constitutive model. Moreover, the discrete elastic-viscous-split-stress (DEVSS) procedure and stabilized pressure gradient projection (SPGP) are introduced into a second-order CBS framework. The projections of velocity and pressure gradients therein combine to form the DEVSS-G/CBS(B)-SPGP algorithm that further stabilizes the discretized model. Both proposed schemes are suitable for use in CS-FEM because they accept equal low-order interpolations for primitive variables. The spatial discretization is based upon bilinear four-node quadrilateral elements where all gradient-related items are smoothed without any methodological difficulties. In particular, the cell-based smoothing concept enables accurate evaluation of viscoelastic fluid force. The developed methods are validated against previously published data for several benchmark problems. A satisfactory agreement exists between the present and earlier results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]