Spectral vanishing viscosity method for LES: sensitivity to the SVV control parameters

Where spectral methods are concerned, the spectral vanishing viscosity (SVV) method offers an interesting way of computing high Reynolds number flows since it allows stabilization of the calculations whilst preserving the exponential rate of convergence of the spectral approximation. Here we first show how to implement the SVV method in an existing Navier–Stokes solver and then investigate the sensitivity of the numerical results to its main characteristic parameters, namely the SVV amplitude and the SVV activation mode, by focusing on the computation of a turbulent wake in a cylinder, embedded in a channel-like domain, at Reynolds number Re = 3900.

Keywords:

• Spectral methods
• Spectral vanishing viscosity
• Large eddy simulation
• Cylinder wake

Acknowledgments

The computations were made on the NEC-SX5 computer of the IDRIS Computational Center (project 034055). The work was supported by the CNRS, in the frame of the DFG-CNRS project ‘Pseudo-spectral methods for LES of complex flows’. We are grateful to G. Darnis (student) and J.M. Lacroix (engineer of the CNRS) for their helpful support.