LES of spatially developing turbulent boundary layer over a concave surface

Abstract

We revisit the problem of a spatially developing turbulent boundary layer over a concave surface. Unlike previous investigations, we simulate the combined effects of streamline curvature as well as curvature-induced pressure gradients on the turbulence. Our focus is on investigating the response of the turbulent boundary layer to the sudden onset of curvature and the destabilising influence of concave surface in the presence of pressure gradients. This is of interest for evaluating the turbulence closure models. At the beginning of the curve, the momentum thickness Reynolds number is 1520 and the ratio of the boundary layer thickness to the radius of curvature is δ₀/R = 0.055. The radial profiles of the mean velocity and turbulence statistics at different locations along the concave surface are presented. Our recently proposed curvature-corrected Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) model is assessed in an a posteriori sense and the improvements obtained over the base model are reported. From the large Eddy simulation (LES) results, it was found that the maximum influence of concave curvature is on the wall-normal component of the Reynolds stress. The budgets of wall-normal Reynolds stress also confirmed this observation. At the onset of curvature, the effect of adverse pressure gradient is found to be predominant. This decreases the skin friction levels below that in the flat section.

Keywords:

• LES
• turbulence
• concave wall
• streamline curvature
• pressure gradients
• inflow generation
• RANS

Additional information

Funding

This work used computational resources of Stampede under the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE), which is supported by National Science Foundation [grant number OCI-1053575].