TURBULENCE – CONCEPT &

MODELLING
M. MOHAMED LUKHMAN & V. RAHUL
 MOTIVATION

 Encountered in Most of the

industrial flows.
 Turbulence is characterised by
choatic 3D vorticity.
 Presence of turbulence
dominates all flow phenomena
& results in increased energy
dissipation, heat transfer and
drag
 EX: jet entering a domain with
stagnant fluid & wake behind
bluff body
WHAT HAPPENS IN TURBULENCE ?

 Unsteady and aperiodic motion in

which transported quantities
fluctuate with respect to time and
space
 Identifiable swirl pattern
 Enhanced Mixing
 Presence of wide range of eddies.
 Strong dependence from initial
conditions
 Highly dissipative, dispersive and
diffusive in nature.
 Flow feature independent of fluid
 IS THE FLOW TURBULENT?

• Yt
 ENERGY CASCADING

 Energy cascade from large to small scale.

 Largest eddies extracts KE form mean flow
and evolved into smaller eddies
 Large Eddy – directional Preference,
Anisotropic
 Small Eddy – No directional Preference and
isotropic
 MODELLING AGAINST RESOLVING!!!!

• NS equation describe laminar and turbulent

flow without any special distinction
• Theoretically , all turbulent flows can be
stimulated by numerically solving the full
NS equation.
• DNS – need to resolve whole spectrum of
scales without any modelling
• But cost is too prohibitive
• Not practical for industrial flows and
impossible (even with supercomputers) to
simulate high Re turbulent flows directly
• Many order of magnitude higher than today
computational power is required
• As a Practical alternative to hardware
limitations, CFD still employs turbulence
models.
TURBULENCE MODELLING
 NAVIER STROKES EQUATION
(INCOMPRESSIBLE FLOWS)

• fhdt

REYNOLDS
DECOMPOSITION
 ON AVERAGING NS EQUATION

On applying Reynolds decomposition to non linear terms,

To solve RANS equation for the mean flow we need to model the
Reynolds stress
 HOW TO MODEL 6 REYNOLDS STRESS
COMPONENTS ??

Reynolds Stress Models (RSM)

• Modelling each of the 6 Reynolds-stress components individually (i.e.
deriving and solving a transport equation for each of the 6 components).
• Possible to model detailed features of the Reynolds stress. However, it is
often difficult to obtain a fully converged solution (i.e. not very robust).
• Requires relatively high computational cost.
• Anisotropy eddy viscosity accounted for!
• Necessary in high swirling flows

Eddy Viscosity Models (EVM)

• Modelling the 6 stress components all together, assuming a similarity
between the viscous stress (due to viscosity) and Reynolds stress (due to
turbulence).
• Requires relatively low computational cost
 WHAT IS EDDY VISCOSITY MODEL ???

• Viscous stress is proportional to velocity gradient and molecular viscosity

(Newton's law of viscosity)

• In analogy with this we assume Reynolds stress is proportional to mean

velocity gradient and eddy viscosity due to turbulence (Eddy viscosity
hypothesis) – Bossinessq Hypothesis

The main advantage of introducing eddy viscosity model are:

• single variable is modelled instead of modelling 6 components
individually
• Makes easier to imagine the effects of turbulence on the mean flow.
 WHAT IS EDDY VISCOSITY MODEL ???

This hypothesis is valid only when…

• The scale of turbulence (eddies) is much smaller than the scale of the
mean flow field.
• The velocity fluctuations are highly isotropic ( 𝜇𝑇 is not homogeneous in
space but assumed to be isotropic )
• The hypothesis is reasonable for simple turbulent shear flows: boundary
layers, round jets, mixing layers, channel flows, etc.
 PRANDTL MIXING LENGTH (ZERO EQUATION )

• Zero-equation models calculate νT based on the i.e. mean flow data and
empirical knowledge, without solving any additional transport equations.
• Simplified approximate models analogy with kinetic theory of gases.
• Express the kinematic turbulent viscosity as the product of a velocity scale
and a length scale.
• velocity scale is proportional to the length scale and the gradients in the
velocity ( assumption) then,

Advantages:
• Easy to implement.
• Fast calculation times.
• Good predictions for simple flows
Disadvantages:
• Completely incapable of describing flow separation and circulation
 SPALLART ALLMARAS (1 EQUATION)

• Simple one equation model that solves transport equation for kinematic
viscosity where it is not necessary to calculate length scale
• Solves modified form of eddy viscosity
• Cannot be relied to predict the decay of homogeneous and isotropic
turbulence
Economical and accurate for:
• Attached wall-bounded flows.
• Flows with mild separation and recirculation.
• Developed for use in unstructured codes in the aerospace industry.
• Popular in aeronautics for computing the flow around aero plane wings,
etc.
Weak for:
• Massively separated flows.
• Free shear flows.
• Decaying turbulence.
• Complex internal flows.
TWO EQUATION MODEL (STANDARD K‐Ε MODEL)

• Proposed by Launder and Spalding

• Robust, economy and reasonable accuracy gives popularity in industrial
and heat transfer simulations
• It is semi empirical model relies on considerations– solution of two
equation allows velocity and length scales to be determined individually.
• Derivation made with an assumption that flow is fully turbulent and effect
of molecular viscosity is negligible.
TWO EQUATION MODEL (STANDARD K‐Ε MODEL)

Advantages:
• Relatively simple to implement.
• Leads to stable calculations that converge relatively easily.
• Reasonable predictions for many flows.

Disadvantages: Poor predictions for:

• swirling and rotating flows,
• flows with strong separation,
• axisymmetric jets,
• certain unconfined flows, and
• fully developed flows in non-circular ducts.
• Valid only for fully turbulent flows.
• –Simplistic ε equation.
 TWO EQUATION MODEL (RNG K-‐Ε MODEL)

• k-e equations are derived from the application of a rigorous statistical technique
(Renormalization Group Method)
Similar in form to the standard k-e equations but includes:
 Additional term in e which improves accuracy for rapidly strained flows
 Effect of swirl on turbulence enhances accuracy of swirling flows
 Analytical formula for turbulent Prandtl number.

Improved predictions for:

• High streamline curvature and strain rate.
• Transitional flows.
• Wall heat and mass transfer.
TWO EQUATION MODEL (REALIZABLE K-Ε MODEL)

Shares the same turbulent kinetic energy equation as the standard k-e model.
• Improved equation for ε where dissipation rate is obtained from mean
square vorticity fluctuation.
• Variable Cμ instead of constant.

Improved performance for flows involving:

• Planar and round jets (predicts round jet spreading correctly).
• Boundary layers under strong adverse pressure gradients or separation.
• Rotation, recirculation.
• Strong streamline curvature
TWO EQUATION MODEL (STANDARD
K-W MODEL)
This model solves two additional PDEs:
• A modified version of the k equation used in the k-ε model.
• A transport equation for ω.
• Wilcox model incorporates modification on low re effects, compressibility
and shear flow spreading
• Predicts free shear flow spreading rates in close agreement with wakes,
mixing layers radial jets thus applicable to wall bounded free shear flows.
 TWO EQUATION MODEL (K-W SST MODEL)

• It is combination of a k-ω model (in the inner boundary layer) and k-ε
model (in the outer region of and outside of the boundary layer)
• Allows accurate and robust prediction of problems with flow separation.
 RSM

RSM closes the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes equations by solving

additional transport equations for the six independent Reynolds stresses.
 Transport equations derived by Reynolds averaging the product of the
momentum equations with a fluctuating property.
 Closure also requires one equation for turbulent dissipation.
 Isotropic eddy viscosity assumption is avoided.
• Resulting equations contain terms that need to be modelled.
• RSM is good for accurately predicting complex flows.
• Accounts for streamline curvature, swirl, rotation and high strain rates.
• Cyclone flows, swirling combustor flows.
• Rotating flow passages, secondary flows.
• Flows involving separation.
GUIDELINE FOR RANS FAMILY
 WALL EFFECTS AND
WALL UNITS

• The size and motion of eddies are restricted by the wall.

• As the eddy size is reduced, viscous (damping) effects become important
(which cannot be predicted by the standard k- ε model). Eventually, all
eddies are dissipated (due to viscosity) in the region very close to the wall,
i.e. “viscous sub layer”.
• In the viscous sub layer,

• Thickness of the “near-wall” region (or “viscous wall” region) depends on

“local” Reynolds number
 WALL EFFECTS AND
WALL UNITS

• “wall units”, which is a non-dimensional distance from the wall (and is

similar to “local” Reynolds number):
 WALL FUNCTION AND RESOLVING
APPROACH

• Wall functions – semi empirical model is used to bridge viscosity affected

region between walls and fully affected region
• Wall resolving – turbulence models are modified to enable viscosity
affected region to be resolved with mesh all the way to wall including
viscous sub layer.

WALL FUNCTION WALL MODELLING

THANK YOU