Compressible vs. Incompressible formulations

Fernando Velasco Hurtado

First, thanks to Mr. Chien for the advice on validation cases for my code to solve axisymmetric compressible flow.

My formation in CFD began with incompressible algorithms based in finite volume discretization and now my thesis deals with the extension of incompressible algorithms to compressible flows (you should understand that only recently we began to introduce in CFD in this part of the world). However, examining the lately works on compressible flow, it seems that nobody uses incompressible formulations in this field anymore.

My questions are: What are the principal disadvantages of using incompressible formulations for compressible flow? What are the advantages of the compressible formulations over the incompressible ones? Is there compressible flows that can't be solved with incompressible algorithms?

Actually, I am using the PRIME algorithm (by the way, anybody has ever heard about this algorithm?). With it I can easily obtain subsonic and supersonic solutions for the Euler equations.

Ahead of time, thanks for your cooperation.

Fernando Velasco Hurtado

Oruro-Bolivia