Study of turbulent flow past a square cylinder using partially-averaged Navier–Stokes method in OpenFOAM

Abstract

The present paper reports numerical simulation of turbulent flow over a square cylinder using a novel scale resolving computational fluid dynamics technique named Partially-Averaged Navier–Stokes (PANS), which bridges Reynolds-Averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) with Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) in a seamless manner. All stream-wise and wall normal mean velocity components, turbulent stresses behavior have been computed along the flow (streamwise) as well as in transverse (wall normal) direction. The measurement locations are chosen based on the previous studies so that results could be compared. However, the Reynolds number ( Re) of the flow is maintained at 21,400 and K– ω turbulence model is considered for the present case. All the computations are performed in OpenFOAM framework using a finite volume solver. Additionally, turbulent kinetic energy variations are presented over a wide range of measurement planes in order to explain the energy transfer process in highly unsteady turbulent flow field. The fluctuating root mean square velocities in the streamwise as well as in the wall normal direction have been discussed in the present work. It has been found that Partially-Averaged Navier–Stokes (PANS) model is capable of capturing the properties of highly unsteady turbulent flows and gives better results than Reynolds-Averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS). The results obtained using Partially-Averaged Navier–Stokes (PANS) are quite comparable with Large Eddy Simulation (LES) and Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) data available in literature. The partially-averaged Navier–Stokes results are compared with our simulated Reynolds-Averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) results, available experimental as well as numerical results in literature and it is found to be good in agreement.