Large-eddy simulation of turbulent pipe flow of Herschel-Bulkley fluids - Assessing subgrid-scale models

Abstract

This paper investigates the turbulent pipe flow of viscoplastic fluids using large-eddy simulation (LES) and the OpenFOAM package. The Herschel-Bulkley model is employed to describe the viscosity function with shear-thinning and viscoplastic behavior. Many LES studies evaluating different subgrid-scale (SGS) models for Newtonian fluids are available in the literature. However, studies regarding LES and SGS models involving non-Newtonian fluids are scarce, despite the importance of the subject. The present paper focuses on evaluating the performance of the Dynamic Smagorinsky and Wall Adapting Local Eddy-viscosity (WALE) models, and the under-resolved direct numerical simulation (UDNS) with viscoplastic fluids. The first- and second-order turbulence statistics and flow features, such as mean wall shear stress, mean wall viscosity, friction factor, mean shear rate, and mean viscosity profiles are used to assess the different models. Simulations are carried out at two different generalized Reynolds numbers (ReG) of 5000 and 7500. The numerical results computed with LES are compared with direct numerical simulation (DNS) results and experimental data for turbulent pipe flow of a Newtonian fluid to validate the numerical method. LES results for the Herschel-Bulkley fluid show a good agreement for the first- and second-order turbulence statistics compared with DNS data. Moreover, mean flow quantities obtained with LES follow the trend of DNS data.