Large-eddy simulation and wall modelling of turbulent channel flow

Abstract

We report large-eddy simulation (LES) of turbulent channel flow. This LES neither resolves nor partially resolves the near-wall region. Instead, we develop a special near-wall subgrid-scale (SGS) model based on wall-parallel filtering and wall-normal averaging of the streamwise momentum equation, with an assumption of local inner scaling used to reduce the unsteady term. This gives an ordinary differential equation (ODE) for the wall shear stress at every wall location that is coupled with the LES. An extended form of the stretched-vortex SGS model, which incorporates the production of near-wall Reynolds shear stress due to the winding of streamwise momentum by near-wall attached SGS vortices, then provides a log relation for the streamwise velocity at the top boundary of the near-wall averaged domain. This allows calculation of an instantaneous slip velocity that is then used as a ‘virtual-wall’ boundary condition for the LES. A Kármán-like constant is calculated dynamically as part of the LES. With this closure we perform LES of turbulent channel flow for Reynolds numbers Reτ based on the friction velocity uτ and the channel half-width δ in the range 2 × 103 to 2 × 107. Results, including SGS-extended longitudinal spectra, compare favourably with the direct numerical simulation (DNS) data of Hoyas & Jiménez (2006) at Reτ = 2003 and maintain an O(1) grid dependence on Reτ.