Separated Flow Prediction Around a 6:1 Prolate Spheroid Using Reynolds Stress Models

Abstract

A numerical study of the separated flow about a 6:1 prolate spheroid at high-angle of attack using state-of-the-art Reynolds stress models is presented. The convective fluxes of the mean-flow and the Reynolds stress model equations are approximated by a third-order upwind biased MUSCL scheme. The diffusive flux is approximated by second-order central differencing based on a full-viscous stencil. The objective is to evaluate the applicability of RSM to realistic high-Reynolds separated flows. Comprehensive comparisons of the boundary layer velocity profile and of the Reynolds stress tensor components against the experimental data are presented. A very good agreement between the experimental measurements and calculated boundary layer velocity profiles is obtained. However, only reasonable agreement is obtained for the Reynolds stress components. It is shown that the common first-order upwind approximation of the Reynolds stress model convective flux alone may adversely affect the accuracy of the solution.