Coupling of a finite-volume method with a pseudospectral method

Spectral methods (SM) are accurate up to an arbitrary order provided the solution is smooth and the computational domain is simple. On the other hand, when the problem geometry has a complex shape, finite-volume methods (FVM) have the advantage of being more flexible in fitting the domain boundaries by arbitrarily complex grids. The paper deals with the coupling of a spectral method and a finite-volume method within a CFD code, enabling the combination of the advantages of both approaches. Considering some representative test cases the features of the coupled method are shown, where special emphasis is given to the coupling mechanism and to the accuracy and efficiency of the method.