Comparative study on triangular and quadrilateral meshes by a finite-volume method with a central difference scheme

In this article, comparative studies on computational accuracies and convergence rates of triangular and quadrilateral meshes are carried out in the frame work of the finite-volume method. By theoretical analysis, we conclude that the number of triangular cells needs to be 4/3 times that of quadrilateral cells to obtain similar accuracy. The conclusion is verified by a number of numerical examples. In addition, the convergence rates of the triangular meshes are found to be slower than those of the quadrilateral meshes when the same accuracy is obtained with these two mesh types.