No Arabic abstract
The turbulent flow in an infinitely extended plane channel is analysed by solving the Navier-Stokes equations with a DNS approach. Solutions are obtained in a numerical solution domain of finite size in the streamwise as well as in the lateral direction setting periodic boundary conditions in both directions. Their impact on large scale structures in the turbulent flow field is analysed carefully in order to avoid their suppression. When this is done appropriately well known stripe patterns in these flows can be observed and analysed especially with respect to their relative motion compared to the mean flow velocity. Various details of this stripe pattern dominated velocity field are shown. Also global parameters like the friction factor in the flow field and the Nusselt number in the temperature field are determined based on the statistics of the flow and temperature data in a very large time period that guarantees fully developed turbulent flow and heat transfer.
We seek possible statistical consequences of the way a forcing term is added to the Navier--Stokes equations in the Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) of incompressible channel flow. Simulations driven by constant flow rate, constant pressure gradient and constant power input are used to build large databases, and in particular to store the complete temporal trace of the wall-shear stress for later analysis. As these approaches correspond to different dynamical systems, it can in principle be envisaged that these differences are reflect by certain statistics of the turbulent flow field. The instantaneous realizations of the flow in the various simulations are obviously different, but, as expected, the usual one-point, one-time statistics do not show any appreciable difference. However, the PDF for the fluctuations of the streamwise component of wall friction reveals that the simulation with constant flow rate presents lower probabilities for extreme events of large positive friction. The low probability value of such events explains their negligible contribution to the commonly computed statistics; however, the very existence of a difference in the PDF demonstrates that the forcing term is not entirely uninfluential. Other statistics for wall-based quantities (the two components of friction and pressure) are examined; in particular spatio-temporal autocorrelations show small differences at large temporal separations, where unfortunately the residual statistical uncertainty is still of the same order of the observed difference. Hence we suggest that the specific choice of the forcing term does not produce important statistical consequences, unless one is interested in the strongest events of high wall friction, that are underestimated by a simulation run at constant flow rate.
A Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) of the incompressible flow around a rectangular cylinder with chord-to-thickness ratio 5:1 (also known as the BARC benchmark) is presented. The work replicates the first DNS of this kind recently presented by Cimarelli et al (2018), and intends to contribute to a solid numerical benchmark, albeit at a relatively low value of the Reynolds number. The study differentiates from previous work by using an in-house finite-differences solver instead of the finite-volumes toolbox OpenFOAM, and by employing finer spatial discretization and longer temporal average. The main features of the flow are described, and quantitative differences with the existing results are highlighted. The complete set of terms appearing in the budget equation for the components of the Reynolds stress tensor is provided for the first time. The different regions of the flow where production, redistribution and dissipation of each component take place are identified, and the anisotropic and inhomogeneous nature of the flow is discussed. Such information is valuable for the verification and fine-tuning of turbulence models in this complex separating and reattaching flow.
We present direct numerical simulations of turbulent channel flow with passive Lagrangian polymers. To understand the polymer behavior we investigate the behavior of infinitesimal line elements and calculate the probability distribution function (PDF) of finite-time Lyapunov exponents and from them the corresponding Cramers function for the channel flow. We study the statistics of polymer elongation for both the Oldroyd-B model (for Weissenberg number $Wi <1$) and the FENE model. We use the location of the minima of the Cramers function to define the Weissenberg number precisely such that we observe coil-stretch transition at $Wiapprox1$. We find agreement with earlier analytical predictions for PDF of polymer extensions made by Balkovsky, Fouxon and Lebedev [Phys. Rev. Lett., 84, 4765 (2000).] for linear polymers (Oldroyd-B model) with $Wi<1$ and by Chertkov [Phys. Rev. Lett., 84, 4761 (2000).] for nonlinear FENE-P model of polymers. For $Wi>1$ (FENE model) the polymer are significantly more stretched near the wall than at the center of the channel where the flow is closer to homogenous isotropic turbulence. Furthermore near the wall the polymers show a strong tendency to orient along the stream-wise direction of the flow but near the centerline the statistics of orientation of the polymers is consistent with analogous results obtained recently in homogeneous and isotropic flows.
We present numerical simulations of laminar and turbulent channel flow of an elastoviscoplastic fluid. The non-Newtonian flow is simulated by solving the full incompressible Navier-Stokes equations coupled with the evolution equation for the elastoviscoplastic stress tensor. The laminar simulations are carried out for a wide range of Reynolds numbers, Bingham numbers and ratios of the fluid and total viscosity, while the turbulent flow simulations are performed at a fixed bulk Reynolds number equal to 2800 and weak elasticity. We show that in the laminar flow regime the friction factor increases monotonically with the Bingham number (yield stress) and decreases with the viscosity ratio, while in the turbulent regime the the friction factor is almost independent of the viscosity ratio and decreases with the Bingham number, until the flow eventually returns to a fully laminar condition for large enough yield stresses. Three main regimes are found in the turbulent case, depending on the Bingham number: for low values, the friction Reynolds number and the turbulent flow statistics only slightly differ from those of a Newtonian fluid; for intermediate values of the Bingham number, the fluctuations increase and the inertial equilibrium range is lost. Finally, for higher values the flow completely laminarises. These different behaviors are associated with a progressive increases of the volume where the fluid is not yielded, growing from the centerline towards the walls as the Bingham number increases. The unyielded region interacts with the near-wall structures, forming preferentially above the high speed streaks. In particular, the near-wall streaks and the associated quasi-streamwise vortices are strongly enhanced in an highly elastoviscoplastic fluid and the flow becomes more correlated in the streamwise direction.
Turbulence modeling is a classical approach to address the multiscale nature of fluid turbulence. Instead of resolving all scales of motion, which is currently mathematically and numerically intractable, reduced models that capture the large-scale behavior are derived. One of the most popular reduced models is the Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations. The goal is to solve the RANS equations for the mean velocity and pressure field. However, the RANS equations contain a term called the Reynolds stress tensor, which is not known in terms of the mean velocity field. Many RANS turbulence models have been proposed to model the Reynolds stress tensor in terms of the mean velocity field, but are usually not suitably general for all flow fields of interest. Data-driven turbulence models have recently garnered considerable attention and have been rapidly developed. In a seminal work, Ling et al (2016) developed the tensor basis neural network (TBNN), which was used to learn a general Galilean invariant model for the Reynolds stress tensor. The TBNN was applied to a variety of flow fields with encouraging results. In the present study, the TBNN is applied to the turbulent channel flow. Its performance is compared with classical turbulence models as well as a neural network model that does not preserve Galilean invariance. A sensitivity study on the TBNN reveals that the network attempts to adjust to the dataset, but is limited by the mathematical form that guarantees Galilean invariance.