On the large-eddy simulation of transitional wall-bounded flows

The structure of the subgrid scale fields in plane channel flow has been studied at various stages of the transition process to turbulence. The residual stress and subgrid scale dissipation calculated using velocity fields generated by direct numerical simulations of the Navier-Stokes equations are significantly different from their counterparts in turbulent flows. The subgrid scale dissipation changes sign over extended areas of the channel, indicating energy flow from the small scales to the large scales. This reversed energy cascade becomes less pronounced at the later stages of transition. Standard residual stress models of the Smagorinsky type are excessively dissipative. Rescaling the model constant improves the prediction of the total (integrated) subgrid scale dissipation, but not that of the local one. Despite the somewhat excessive dissipation of the rescaled Smagorinsky model, the results of a large eddy simulation of transition on a flat-plate boundary layer compare quite well with those of a direct simulation, and require only a small fraction of the computational effort. The inclusion of non-dissipative models, which could lead to further improvements, is proposed

Toward the large-eddy simulation of compressible turbulent flows

New subgrid-scale models for the large-eddy simulation of compressible turbulent flows are developed and tested based on the Favre-filtered equations of motion for an ideal gas. A compressible generalization of the linear combination of the Smagorinsky model and scale-similarity model, in terms of Favre-filtered fields, is obtained for the subgrid-scale stress tensor. An analogous thermal linear combination model is also developed for the subgrid-scale heat flux vector. The two dimensionless constants associated with these subgrid-scale models are obtained by correlating with the results of direct numerical simulations of compressible isotropic turbulence performed on a 96(exp 3) grid using Fourier collocation methods. Extensive comparisons between the direct and modeled subgrid-scale fields are provided in order to validate the models. A large-eddy simulation of the decay of compressible isotropic turbulence (conducted on a coarse 32(exp 3) grid) is shown to yield results that are in excellent agreement with the fine grid direct simulation. Future applications of these compressible subgrid-scale models to the large-eddy simulation of more complex supersonic flows are discussed briefly

Proper Orthogonal Decomposition Closure Models For Turbulent Flows: A Numerical Comparison

This paper puts forth two new closure models for the proper orthogonal decomposition reduced-order modeling of structurally dominated turbulent flows: the dynamic subgrid-scale model and the variational multiscale model. These models, which are considered state-of-the-art in large eddy simulation, together with the mixing length and the Smagorinsky closure models, are tested in the numerical simulation of a 3D turbulent flow around a circular cylinder at Re = 1,000. Two criteria are used in judging the performance of the proper orthogonal decomposition reduced-order models: the kinetic energy spectrum and the time evolution of the POD coefficients. All the numerical results are benchmarked against a direct numerical simulation. Based on these numerical results, we conclude that the dynamic subgrid-scale and the variational multiscale models perform best.Comment: 28 pages, 6 figure

Examining subgrid models of supermassive black holes in cosmological simulation

While supermassive black holes (SMBHs) play an important role in galaxy and cluster evolution, at present they can only be included in large-scale cosmological simulation via subgrid techniques. However, these subgrid models have not been studied in a systematic fashion. Using a newly-developed fast, parallel spherical overdensity halo finder built into the simulation code FLASH, we perform a suite of dark matter-only cosmological simulations to study the effects of subgrid model choice on relations between SMBH mass and dark matter halo mass and velocity dispersion. We examine three aspects of SMBH subgrid models: the choice of initial black hole seed mass, the test for merging two black holes, and the frequency of applying the subgrid model. We also examine the role that merging can play in determining the relations, ignoring the complicating effects of SMBH-driven accretion and feedback. We find that the choice of subgrid model can dramatically affect the black hole merger rate, the cosmic SMBH mass density, and the low-redshift relations to halo properties. We also find that it is possible to reproduce observations of the low-redshift relations without accretion and feedback, depending on the choice of subgrid model.Comment: 12 pages, 12 figures, revised from referee comments, accepted by Ap

Stochastic representation of the Reynolds transport theorem: revisiting large-scale modeling

We explore the potential of a formulation of the Navier-Stokes equations incorporating a random description of the small-scale velocity component. This model, established from a version of the Reynolds transport theorem adapted to a stochastic representation of the flow, gives rise to a large-scale description of the flow dynamics in which emerges an anisotropic subgrid tensor, reminiscent to the Reynolds stress tensor, together with a drift correction due to an inhomogeneous turbulence. The corresponding subgrid model, which depends on the small scales velocity variance, generalizes the Boussinesq eddy viscosity assumption. However, it is not anymore obtained from an analogy with molecular dissipation but ensues rigorously from the random modeling of the flow. This principle allows us to propose several subgrid models defined directly on the resolved flow component. We assess and compare numerically those models on a standard Green-Taylor vortex flow at Reynolds 1600. The numerical simulations, carried out with an accurate divergence-free scheme, outperform classical large-eddies formulations and provides a simple demonstration of the pertinence of the proposed large-scale modeling