Direct numerical simulation of channel flow with real surface roughness using a ghost cell immersed boundary method

Abstract

This paper investigates the impact of real surface roughness on channel flow using direct numerical simulation assisted by a ghost cell immersed boundary method (DNS-GCIBM). The principles and implementations of DNS-GCIBM are first introduced. Two test cases, including the two-dimensional flow around a cylinder and the three-dimensional flow in a sinusoidal roughness channel are employed to demonstrate the practicability and accuracy of the proposed approach, especially in numerical studies on the rough wall-bounded flow. Using DNS-GCIBM, channel flows under conditions of Ma = 0.3 and Reτ≈300, with both the real-world and regular roughness surfaces are studied. The results are statistically analyzed using the triple decomposition technique. The outer layer similarity in the streamwise mean velocity and Reynolds stress profiles indicate that the impact of roughness on the boundary layer primarily localizes within roughness sub-layer. In the streamwise mean velocity profile, both regular and real-world roughness surfaces induce obvious increase to the roughness function ΔU+ as roughness height Ra increases, while discrepancy of ΔU+ between the two types of roughness can be found. Furthermore, turbulence statistics are sensitive to the variations of Ra. As Ra increases, it becomes challenging to organize coherent structures near the wall, resulting in the reduction of streamwise Reynolds stress intensity. In addition, although the skin friction coefficient and ΔU+ are almost the same, the real-world roughness and the corresponding equivalent regular roughness manifest different flow structures near the wall. The real-world roughness contributes greater spatial inhomogeneity but lower turbulence intensity.