Large-Eddy Simulation and Conjugate Heat Transfer in a Round Impinging Jet

Abstract

This study addresses and evaluates the use of high fidelity Large Eddy Simulation (LES) for the prediction of Conjugate Heat Transfer (CHT) of an impinging jet at a Reynolds number of 23 000, a Mach number of 0.1 and for a nozzle to plate distance of H/D = 2. For such simulations mesh point localization as well as the turbulent model and the numerical scheme are known to be of primary importance. In this context, a compressible unstructured third order in time and space LES solver is assessed through the use of WALE sub-grid scale model in a wall-resolved methodology. All simulations discussed in this document well recover main unsteady flow features (the jet core development, the impinging region, the deviation of the flow and the wall jet region) as well as the mean statistics of velocity. Convergence of the wall mesh resolution is investigated by use of 3 meshes and predictions are assessed in terms of wall friction and heat flux. The meshes are based either on full tetrahedral cells or on a hybrid strategy with prism layers at the wall and tetrahedral elsewhere. The hybrid strategy allows reaching good discretization of the boundary layers with a reasonable number of cells. Unsteady flow features retrieved in the jet core, shear layer, impinging region and wall jet region are analyzed and linked to the unsteady and mean heat flux measured at the wall. To finish, a LES based CHT computation relying on the finer grid is used to access the plate temperature distribution. Nusselt number profiles along the plate for the isothermal and the coupled cases are also provided and compared.