History effect on the Reynolds stress in turbulent swirling flow

Abstract

The eddy-viscosity model for turbulence has some difficulty in predicting rotating and swirling flows. Turbulent swirling flow in a straight pipe is a typical example. A rapidly rotating core in the pipe decays too quickly in results obtained from the standard k–ε model. The eddy viscosity needs to be reduced to predict the velocity profiles well; the mechanism of the decrease in the eddy viscosity has not been clarified yet. In this work, the eddy-viscosity model was investigated using a temporally nonlocal expression for the Reynolds stress that represents the history effect. A simple transport equation for the Reynolds stress was integrated along a mean-flow pathline to obtain a temporally nonlocal model for the Reynolds stress. The nonlocal model was applied to simple swirling flows for which the time integral can be further calculated to investigate the history effect. It was shown that the history effect associated with the rotating motion gives rise to a small factor in the expression for the eddy viscosity. In order to confirm the history effect, the present model and the linear eddy-viscosity model were used to simulate a swirling pipe flow. The velocity profiles obtained from the present model agree well with experimental results; the reduced eddy viscosity can account for the slow decay of the swirling motion in the core region. The anisotropic nature of the eddy viscosity was also discussed in relation to the small factor caused by the history effect.