A computational slip boundary condition for near-wall turbulence modeling

Abstract

Near-wall turbulence modeling represents one of challengers in the computational fluid dynamics. To tackle this problem, the near-wall non-overlapping domain decomposition (NDD) method proved to be very efficient. It has been successfully used with different Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes models. In NDD the computational domain is split into two non-overlapping sub-domains: an inner region near the wall, which is characterized by high gradients, and the outer region. To simplify the solution, in the inner region the thin-layer model can be used. In this case, NDD represents a trade-off between the accuracy and computational time. It has been demonstrated on numerous test cases that NDD is able to save up to one order of computational time while retaining practically high accuracy. A practical drawback of the algorithm is a need to split the computational domain into two regions. In the present paper, for the first time the NDD is realized implicitly. For this purpose, specific boundary conditions of Robin type are derived at the wall. Such boundary conditions reduce the gradients of the solution near the wall. The key property is that the solution can be obtained on a relatively coarse grid and then be recalculated in the inner region. In the approach it is guaranteed that the original outer and updated inner solutions are linked smoothly. The algorithm with the new boundary conditions can be easily implemented in standard codes. This is demonstrated with the code OpenFOAM. In addition, in the paper a more accurate approach to obtain the solution in the inner region is realized. The efficiency of the entire technique is demonstrated on test cases with modeling turbulent flows in a channel and asymmetric diffuser.