Scale-adaptive simulation of unsteady flow and dispersion around a model building: spectral and POD analyses

Abstract

The present paper evaluates the relative performance of scale-adaptive simulation (SAS) in modelling unsteady concentration and flow fields around a model building relative to other transient simulations such as large eddy simulation (LES) and unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (URANS) models. A novel application of proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) and time–frequency analysis is carried out in order to evaluate the transient behaviour and dominant structures of the flow fields predicted by SAS and LES. Results represent the outstanding performance of SAS in comparison with the URANS computation based on the SST k–ω model. This better performance is related to the accurate reproduction of unsteady fluctuations around the model building by SAS. In addition, the quantitative and qualitative agreements for the shapes and magnitudes of POD modes between SAS and LES confirm the LES-like behaviour of SAS in the wake region. However, in terms of computational performance, SAS imposes an extra CPU cost as compared with LES for the same grid resolution.