Numerical Simulation of Unsteady Turbulent Flow Around Maneuvering Prolate Spheroid

Abstract

A three-dimensional Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes method for unsteady turbulent flow around a maneuvering vehicle was developed and applied to a model problem concerning an extreme case of submarine maneuvers. A body force term is added in the momentum equations to take into account the inertial motion in the body-fixed coordinate system. The Spalart and Allmaras turbulence model is employed for turbulence closure. An artificial compressibility is introduced into the continuity equation for velocity-pressure coupling. The governing equations are discretized by second-order accurate finite volume method in space and second-order accurate backward scheme in time. The computational results are analyzed with global and local quantities and validated by comparison with experimental data. Overall, the present method performs quite well in predicting the unsteady flow phenomena associated with a maneuvering prolate spheroid, and the results compare well with available experimental data