Abstract
The problem of simulating wakes in a stratified oceanic environment with active background turbulence is considered. Anisotropic RANS turbulence models are tested against laboratory and eddy-resolving models of the problem. An important aspect of our work is to acknowledge that the environment is not quiescent; therefore, additional sources are included in the models to provide a non-zero background turbulence. The RANS models are found to reproduce some key features from the eddy-resolving and laboratory descriptions of the problem. Tests using the freestream sources show the intuitive result that background turbulence causes more rapid wake growth and decay.
Highlights
Oceanographic flows include a broad variety of turbulence-generating phenomena, and the associated unsteady motions are in general inhomogeneous, non-stationary, and anisotropic.The thermohaline stratification of the ocean introduces a conservative body force which must be considered when examining flows in such an environment
We have demonstrated the use of a pair of anisotropic stress-transport RANS
The models were found to reproduce a number of important stratified wake behaviors as observed in large-eddy simulation (LES) and laboratory studies
Summary
Oceanographic flows include a broad variety of turbulence-generating phenomena, and the associated unsteady motions are in general inhomogeneous, non-stationary, and anisotropic. The thermohaline stratification of the ocean introduces a conservative body force which must be considered when examining flows in such an environment. Shear, near-free-surface damping, bubbles, and Langmuir circulations complicate any attempt to describe turbulent motions. The variety of production mechanisms includes (but is not limited to) wind shear, wave breaking, internal gravity waves, double diffusion, and overturning due to the alternating heating and cooling of the ocean surface. The numerical simulation of engineering-related problems in such an environment is a daunting prospect. For the case of wakes generated by ships and other man-made objects, the associated
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