A critical assessment of Navier–Stokes and lattice Boltzmann frameworks applied to high-lift configuration through a multiresolution approach

Abstract

The present work focuses on a thorough assessment of the influence of two very different numerical approaches, namely, Navier–Stokes (NS) and the lattice Boltzmann method (LBM), to simulate the flow past a three-element airfoil through zonal detached eddy simulation (ZDES). Both computations (ZDES-NS and ZDES-LBM) are compared to the reference results, namely, a wall-resolved large eddy simulation (WRLES) as well as the experimental data. It is shown that despite very different numerical modeling, the two ZDES provide very consistent results, with the first- and second-order statistics obtained with equivalent accuracy in the impingement region. In light of present results, the ZDES mode 2 (2020) turbulence model within an LBM framework appears as a judicious combination for high-lift flow applications owing to its robustness regarding the use of very fine isotropic Cartesian grids. In addition, ZDES-NS exhibits a very good agreement with both references, especially WRLES despite having 40 times less nodes.