A consistent multi-level subgrid scale closure for large eddy simulation of compressible flow using adaptive mesh refinement

Abstract

A novel subgrid closure model is proposed for performing Large Eddy Simulation (LES) of turbulent compressible flows with block structured Adaptive Mesh Refinement (AMR) strategy. The new approach, henceforth called as AMRLES, is an improvement over the well-established one-equation based subgrid turbulent kinetic energy model with corrections proposed to consistently handle the total resolved turbulent kinetic energy across a multi-level AMR grid hierarchy. The proposed correction for the subgrid kinetic energy is based on an explicit on-the-fly filtering operation from finer grids to underlying coarser grids. The effect of the inter-grid correction is demonstrated by investigating advection of decaying isotropic turbulence across a coarse/fine and fine/coarse AMR grid interface. In the case of fine-to-coarse transition, the multi-level model is shown to correctly recover the subgrid turbulent kinetic energy. AMRLES is then applied to study the canonical problem of shock turbulent interaction. Two different Reynolds numbers are considered and the behavior of the inter-grid corrections on the subgrid turbulent kinetic energy and the subgrid turbulent stresses are analyzed for both the cases. Comparison with filtered DNS results indicates that AMRLES is able to predict the behavior of turbulent statistics across the shock in a satisfactory manner.