Section: New Results

Turbulence models

Participants : Alain Dervieux, Bruno Koobus, Stephen Wornom.

Modeling turbulence is an essential aspect of CFD. The purpose of our work in hybrid RANS/LES (Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes / Large Eddy Simulation) is to develop new approaches for industrial applications of LES-based analyses. In the applications targetted (aeronautics, hydraulics), the Reynolds number can be as high as several tens of millions, far too high for pure LES models. However, certain regions in the flow can be predicted better with LES than with usual statistical RANS models. These are mainly vortical separated regions as assumed in one of the most popular hybrid models, the hybrid Detached Eddy Simulation (DES) model. Here, “hybrid” means that a blending is applied between LES and RANS. An important difference between a real life flow and a wind tunnel or basin is that the turbulence of the flow upstream of each body is not well known.

The development of hybrid models, in particular DES in the litterature, has raised the question of the domain of validity of these models. According to theory, these models should not be applied to flow involving laminar boundary layers (BL). But industrial flows are complex flows and often present regions of laminar BL, regions of fully developed turbulent BL and regions of non-equilibrium vortical BL. It is then mandatory for industrial use that the new hybrid models give a reasonable prediction for all these types of flow. We concentrated on evaluating the behavior of hybrid models for laminar BL and for vortical wakes. While less predictive than pure LES on laminar BL, some hybrid models still give reasonable predictions for rather low Reynolds numbers.

We have developed a new model relying on the hybridation of a DES model based on a k-$ϵ$ closure with our dynamic VMS model [13] [11]. Our purpose is to propose a model rather predictive in condition where the engineer has not much information concerning the turbulence in the flow under study. This year, we continued to improve this model and to test it for a large set of configurations with Reynolds numbers ranging from low (laminar flows) to very large.