Turbulence Modeling Using Body Force Potentials
Abstract
The objective of this study was the development and testing of the turbulent potential model in complex non-equilibrium flows. The initial emphasis was on evaluating and enhancing the models performance in rotating flows and in transition to turbulence. The project was extended in the third year to examine the model's ability to act as a subgrid scale model in Large Eddy Simulations (LES). The turbulent potential model is an alternative approach to Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) turbulence modeling, where the primary quantity of interest is no longer the Reynolds stress tensor. Instead the divergence of the Reynolds stress tensor, a body force vector, is the primary quantity describing how the turbulence affects the mean flow evolution. The potential model approach does not hypothesize any explicit relationship between the turbulence and the mean flow, it is therefore capable of capturing non-equilibrium turbulent flows, and is physically equivalent to Reynolds stress transport (RST) models. However, because the focus is on a vector quantity rather than a tensor, the model equations for the turbulent potential model are simpler than RST models and roughly comparable in cost and complexity to the widely used two equation models.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Nov 14, 2002
- Accession Number
- ADA415903
Entities
People
- Blair Perot
Organizations
- University of Massachusetts Amherst