A Finite Volume Based LES Solver for Turbulent Flows

Abstract

This work presents a new large-eddy simulation (LES) solver, lestr3d, developed to study practical turbulent flow problems. lestr3d solves the compressible LES equations on unstructured grids using the finite volume method and second-order discretization schemes. The compressible Smagorinsky, wall-adapting local-eddy (WALE) viscosity, and k-equation models are available as sub-grid scale models. Efficient parallelization is accomplished using the METIS software and Message-Passing Interface libraries. lestr3d is shown to be scalable on a high-performance computing platform up to cores. The validation and verification analysis of lestr3d is performed on the lid-driven cavity flow problem. The results show excellent agreement with available direct numerical simulation and experimental data for the cases of k-equation and WALE with low- and high-resolution grids respectively. Then, the flow over the T106 turbine blade is studied to showcase the capabilities of lestr3d. It is demonstrated that lestr3d is capable of performing simulations on complex geometries and reliably capture spatio-temporal evolution as well as the statistics of the flow. Overall, lestr3d is demonstrated to be a valuable long-term investment for studying complex turbulent flow problems.