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A grid-independent length scale for large-eddy simulations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2015

Ugo Piomelli ,
Amirreza Rouhi  and
Bernard J. Geurts
Ugo Piomelli*
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario K7L 3N6, Canada
Amirreza Rouhi
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario K7L 3N6, Canada
Bernard J. Geurts
Affiliation:
Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Twente, PO Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands Faculty of Applied Physics, Eindhoven University of Technology, PO Box 513, 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands
*
†Email address for correspondence: [email protected]
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Abstract

We propose a new length scale as a basis for the modelling of subfilter motions in large-eddy simulations (LES) of turbulent flow. Rather than associating the model length scale with the computational grid, we put forward an approximation of the integral length scale to achieve a non-uniform flow coarsening through spatial filtering that reflects the local, instantaneous turbulence activity. Through the introduction of this grid-independent, solution-specific length scale it becomes possible to separate the problem of representing small-scale turbulent motions in a coarsened flow model from that of achieving an accurate numerical resolution of the primary flow scales. The formulation supports the notion of grid-independent LES, in which a prespecified reliability measure is used. We investigate a length-scale definition based on the resolved turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) and its dissipation. The proposed approach, which we call integral length-scale approximation (ILSA) model, is illustrated for turbulent channel flow at high Reynolds numbers and for homogeneous isotropic turbulence (HIT). We employ computational optimization of the model parameter based on various measures of subfilter activity, using the successive inverse polynomial interpolation (SIPI) and establish the efficiency of this route to subfilter modelling.

JFM classification

Turbulent Flows: Turbulence modelling Turbulent Flows: Turbulence simulation
Type
Papers
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 766 , 10 March 2015 , pp. 499 - 527
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Copyright
© 2015 Cambridge University Press 

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