ABSTRACT
Fluid dynamics is governed by conservation of mass, momentum, energy and any other constituents that are continuous functions Partial Differential Equations (PDE). Discretisation is the process of approximating a continuously varying function in terms of values at a finite number of points. In this chapter, the basic concepts of discretisation by finite difference method (FDM) are discussed. Taylor series expansion, for obtaining difference equations, is explained. The method of estimating errors associated with various numerical schemes is outlined. Finally, the consistency and stability of the method is discussed, and Von Neumann’s method of assessing the stability of a finite difference scheme is explained.
