Physically Consistent Resolving Simulations of Turbulent Flows

Entropy (Basel). 2024 Nov 30;26(12):1044. doi: 10.3390/e26121044.

Abstract

Usually applied simulation methods for turbulent flows as large eddy simulation (LES), wall-modeled LES (WMLES), and detached eddy simulation (DES) face significant challenges: they are characterized by improper resolution variations and essential practical simulation problems given by huge computational cost, imbalanced resolution transitions, and resolution mismatch. Alternative simulation methods are described here. By using an extremal entropy analysis, it is shown how minimal error simulation methods can be designed. It is shown that these methods can overcome the typical shortcomings of usually applied simulation methods. A crucial ingredient of this analysis is the identification of a mathematically implied general hybridization mechanism, which is missing in existing methods. Applications to several complex high Reynolds number flow simulations reveal essential performance, functionality, and computational cost advantages of minimal error simulation methods.

Keywords: Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) methods; computational fluid dynamics; hybrid RANS-LES methods; large eddy simulation (LES).

Publication types

  • Review

Grants and funding

This work was supported by Wyoming NASA Space Grant Consortium (NASA Grant No. 80NSSC20M0113) and the University of Wyoming School of Computing (Wyoming Innovation Partnership grant).