Turbulence Modeling Validation, Testing, and Development

TLDR

Experimental data for these flows are well established and widely used in turbulence model development. The study aims to deliver accurate numerical solutions for selected flow fields and evaluate turbulence model performance against experimental data. Four turbulence models (Wilcox k‑ε, Launder–Sharma k‑ε, Menter k‑ω/k‑ε SST, and Spalart–Allmaras one‑equation) were applied to ten canonical flows—five free‑shear and five boundary‑layer cases—and their predictions were compared with experimental data.

Abstract

The primary objective of this work is to provide accurate numerical solutions for selected flow fields and to compare and evaluate the performance of selected turbulence models with experimental results. Four popular turbulence models have been tested and validated against experimental data often turbulent flows. The models are: (1) the two-equation k-epsilon model of Wilcox, (2) the two-equation k-epsilon model of Launder and Sharma, (3) the two-equation k-omega/k-epsilon SST model of Menter, and (4) the one-equation model of Spalart and Allmaras. The flows investigated are five free shear flows consisting of a mixing layer, a round jet, a plane jet, a plane wake, and a compressible mixing layer; and five boundary layer flows consisting of an incompressible flat plate, a Mach 5 adiabatic flat plate, a separated boundary layer, an axisymmetric shock-wave/boundary layer interaction, and an RAE 2822 transonic airfoil. The experimental data for these flows are well established and have been extensively used in model developments. The results are shown in the following four sections: Part A describes the equations of motion and boundary conditions; Part B describes the model equations, constants, parameters, boundary conditions, and numerical implementation; and Parts C and D describe the experimental data and the performance of the models in the free-shear flows and the boundary layer flows, respectively.