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Large-eddy simulation of nonlinear evolution and breakdown to turbulence in high-speed boundary layers

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Abstract

The nonlinear evolution and laminar-turbulent breakdown of a boundary-layer flow along a cylinder at Mach 4.5 is investigated with large-eddy temporal simulation. The results are validated using the direct numerical simulation data of Pruett and Zang. The structure of the flow during the transition process is studied in terms of the vorticity field. The subgrid scales are modeled dynamically, where the model coefficients are determined as part of the solution from the local resolved field. In the numerical simulation the dynamic-model coefficients are obtained by using both the strain-rate contraction of Germano et al. and the least-squares contraction of Lilly; they produced some differences in the details of the vorticity structure inside the transition region. A new dynamic model that utilizes the second-order velocity structure function is used to parametrize the small-scale field. The evolution to turbulence is successfully simulated with dynamic subgrid-scale modeling at least in terms of average quantities as well as vorticity fields. This is achieved with one-sixth of the grid resolution used in direct numerical simulation.

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Author notes

  1. Nabil M. El-Hady

    Present address: Advanced Technology, P.O. Box 1007, 23693, Yorktown, VA, U.S.A.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Analytical Services and Materials, Inc., 23666, Hampton, VA, U.S.A.

    Nabil M. El-Hady

  2. NASA Langley Research Center, 23681, Hampton, VA, U.S.A.

    Thomas A. Zang

Authors
  1. Nabil M. El-Hady
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  2. Thomas A. Zang
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Additional information

Communicated by M.Y. Hussaini

This work was sponsored by the Theoretical Flow Physics Branch of the Fluid Mechanics Division of NASA Langley Research Center under Contract NAS1-19320.

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El-Hady, N.M., Zang, T.A. Large-eddy simulation of nonlinear evolution and breakdown to turbulence in high-speed boundary layers. Theoret. Comput. Fluid Dynamics 7, 217–240 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00312364

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