High-order Large Eddy Simulations of Confined Rotor-Stator Flows

International audienceIn many engineering and industrial applications, the investigation of rotating turbulent flow is of great interest. In rotor-stator cavities, the centrifugal and Coriolis forces have a strong influence on the turbulence by producing a secondary flow in the meridian plane composed of two thin boundary layers along the disks separated by a non-viscous geostrophic core. Most numerical simulations have been performed using RANS and URANS modelling, and very few investigations have been performed using LES. This paper reports on quantitative comparisons of two high-order LES methods to predict a turbulent rotor-stator flow at the rotational Reynolds number Re=400000. The classical dynamic Smagorinsky model for the subgrid-scale stress (Germano et al., Phys Fluids A 3(7):1760-1765, 1991) is compared to a spectral vanishing viscosity technique (Séverac & Serre, J Comp Phys 226(2):1234-1255, 2007). Numerical results include both instantaneous data and postprocessed statistics. The results show that both LES methods are able to accurately describe the unsteady flow structures and to satisfactorily predict mean velocities as well as Reynolds stress tensor components. A slight advantage is given to the spectral SVV approach in terms of accuracy and CPU cost. The strong improvements obtained in the present results with respect to RANS results confirm that LES is the appropriate level of modelling for flows in which fully turbulent and transition regimes are involved

Assessment of flow characteristics over complex terrain covered by the heterogeneous forest at slightly varying mean flow directions: (A case study of a Swedish wind farm)

The impact of heterogeneous forest canopies and complex terrain on the horizontal distortion of the inflow is studied. Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) of the neutral Atmospheric Boundary Layer (ABL) flow is performed for a wind farm in Sweden for three cases associated with three different wind directions at the range of the static yaw misalignment (≃\ub16∘) where the yaw control system is not activated. The ground topography and forest properties for the numerical modeling are extracted from the Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS) 3D data. The wind turbines within the wind farm are introduced using the actuator disk model. To focus on the airflow deflection only by the complex terrain and vegetation, the study is limited to upstream wind turbines without any wake interaction. The predicted mean wind speed and turbulence intensity for the upstream wind turbines are compared against the nacelle-mounted anemometers taken from the wind farm\u27s turbine SCADA data. To quantify the additional load and moments induced at the rotor blades by the horizontal misalignment of the incoming flow, aero-structural simulation of the upstream wind turbines in the wind farm for all three cases is performed. The results show that the horizontal distortion of the inflow over the rotor swept area is usually kept below the range of static yaw misalignment (≃6∘) for the majority of the upstream wind turbines for all three cases. However, the impact of a large vertical shear exponent leading to misinterpretation of the results must be taken into consideration. Furthermore, the load imbalance of the rotor due to the vertical wind shear has the least direct contribution to the yaw moment. However, for a mean vertical shear exponent larger than α=0.25, contrary to expectation, a positive mean yaw moment under the positive-yawed inflow may be observed

Resolution of Tip Vortices by grid-based, grid-free and coupled methods using CFD

The vortex structure resolution is one of the vital problems of CFD as inherent artificial dissipation effects lead to an unphysical strong decay of the vortices. The overall objective of this work is to improve the resolution of concentrated vortices. This work focuses on grid based, grid free methods and coupled methods to capture the details of vortices especially further downstream after the vortex has rolled up and started to decay. The work focuses on a hybrid method as a coupling of grid based and grid free vortex method

Boundary conditions and SGS models for LES of wall-bounded separated flows: an application to engine-like geometries

The implementation and the combination of advanced boundary conditions and subgrid scale models for Large Eddy Simulations are presented. The goal is to perform reliable cold flow LES simulations in complex geometries, such as in the cylinders of internal combustion engines. The implementation of an inlet boundary condition for synthetic turbulence generation and of two subgrid scale models, the local Dynamic Smagorinsky and the Wall-Adapting Local Eddy-viscosity SGS model (WALE) is described. The WALE model is based on the square of the velocity gradient tensor and it accounts for the effects of both the strain and the rotation rate of the smallest resolved turbulent fluctuations and it recovers the proper y(3) near-wall scaling for the eddy viscosity without requiring dynamic pressure; hence, it is supposed to be a very reliable model for ICE simulation. Model validation has been performed separately on two steady state flow benches: a backward facing step geometry and a simple IC engine geometry with one axed central valve. A discussion on the completeness of the LES simulation (i.e. LES simulation quality) is given

Dynamic grid adaptation applied to large eddy simulation turbulence modelling

At present a large number of fluid dynamics applications are found in aerospace, civil and automotive engineering, as well as medical related fields. In many applications the flow field is turbulent and the computational modelling of such flows remains a difficult task. To resolve all turbulent flow phenomena for flow problems where turbulence is of key interest is a priori not feasible in a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) investigation with a conventional mesh. The use of a Dynamic Grid Adaptation (DGA) algorithm in a turbulent unsteady flow field is an appealing technique which can reduce the computational costs of a CFD investigation. A refinement of the numerical domain with a DGA algorithm requires reliable criteria for mesh refinement which reflect the complex flow processes. At present not much work has been done to obtain reliable refinement criteria for turbulent unsteady flow. The purpose of the work presented in this thesis is to use both a DGA algorithm and Large Eddy Simulation (LES) turbulence model for predicting turbulent unsteady flow. The criteria for mesh refinement used in this work are derived from the equation for turbulent viscosity in the LES turbulence model. By using a modification to the turbulent viscosity as a refinement variable there is a link between both DGA algorithm and turbulence model. The smaller scale turbulence is modelled via the LES turbulence model, while the larger scales are resolved. In comparison with the simulations using a conventional mesh, substantial reduction in mesh size has been obtained with the use of a DGA algorithm. The reduction in mesh size is obtained without a decay in the quality of the prediction. It is shown that the use of a DGA algorithm in the context of turbulence modelling is a suitable tool which can be used as a next step in an attempt to resolve turbulence more realistically

A local mesh refinement approach for large-eddy simulations of turbulent flows

In this paper, a local mesh refinement (LMR) scheme on Cartesian grids for large-eddy simulations is presented. The approach improves the calculation of ghost cell pressures and velocities and combines LMR with high-order interpolation schemes at the LMR interface and throughout the rest of the computational domain to ensure smooth and accurate transition of variables between grids of different resolution. The approach is validated for turbulent channel flow and flow over a matrix of wall-mounted cubes for which reliable numerical and experimental data are available. Comparisons of predicted first-order and second-order turbulence statistics with the validation data demonstrated a convincing agreement. Importantly, it is shown that mean streamwise velocities and fluctuating turbulence quantities transition smoothly across coarse-to-fine and fine-to-coarse interfaces