Experience in using a synthetic turbulence generator for eddy-resolving simulation of the free convection boundary layer on a vertical plate

Abstract

Abstract The paper presents results of eddy-resolving numerical simulation of the turbulent free convection boundary layer that develops along a vertical isothermally heated plate. The problem of definition of boundary conditions at the computational domain inlet, where a time-varying flow field has to be specified, is considered. Mean characteristics of inflow are defined from results of RANS simulation of a 2D boundary layer, and a synthetic turbulence generator is used to introduce unsteady fluctuations at the inlet. Calculations are performed with an in-house unstructured finite-volume code; results of comparison with known experimental data are presented. The influence of the choice of the turbulence model used for RANS-based calculations of the mean inlet flow profiles is considered.