An IDS investigation of the flow field physics within compressible boundary layers

Abstract

The motivation of this research is to evaluate the capability of current turbulence models to predict the velocity, the temperature and the heat transfer rates in compressible turbulent boundary layers. The challenges behind capturing both the velocity and temperature variables independently are mainly due to the close coupling of the two variables with compressible boundary layers. It is a well-established fact, once the Mach number exceeds 0.3, compressibility effects in the flow cannot be overlooked. Further, under compressibility conditions, the density variations become very significant, resulting in the heat transfer rate playing an even more substantial role. The net result is an altering of the dynamics within the boundary layer that is significantly different from its laminar counterpart. Physical properties, such as the specific heat capacities, the viscosity and the thermal conductivity, which are often considered as being constant, now vary with respect to temperature, creating strong coupling between the velocity and the temperature fields. Despite the progress made in this field of research, a common issue frequently expressed in the literature is the difficulty in acquiring high quality time-resolved velocity and temperature data in compressible flows, especially near the walls. The effort proposed herein plans to address the aforementioned challenges. The major objective of this study is to demonstrate the capabilities of the Integral-Differential Scheme (IDS) by solving the flow field challenges in compressible boundary layers.