Development and Validation of a Multi-Block Flow Solver for Large Eddy Simulation of Turbulent Flows in Complex Geometries

Abstract

A density-based, multi-block, flow solver has been developed for performing large eddy simulations (LES) of reacting and nonreacting, single- and multi-phase turbulent flows in complex geometries and generalized coordinate systems. The spatially filtered form of the compressible continuity, momentum, total energy, and scalar equations are solved together with various subgrid turbulence closures. All spatial derivatives are approximated by high-order compact differencing and time derivatives are modeled via a low-storage, three- stage, third-order Runge-Kutta scheme. The developed flow solver is validated by performing direct and large- eddy simulations of isotropic turbulence and round/planar jet flows. The results obtained from these simulations were found to be in a good agreement with the numerical data obtained via validated high-order spectral schemes and with the available experimental data. For further validation and application of the computational model and algorithms, large-eddy simulation of turbulent flow in an axisymmetric, sudden-expansion dump-combustor configuration is also considered.