Turbulence anisotropy effects on corner-flow separation: physics and turbulence modelling

Abstract

The secondary motion caused by turbulence anisotropy is one of the crucial factors for determining the size of corner-flow separation in a side-wall interference flow field. Therefore, through a wall-resolved large-eddy simulation (LES) of a side-wall interference flow field, this study investigates the effects of the secondary motion on the corner-flow separation and explores the turbulence modelling that can reproduce the secondary flow motion. The momentum transport analysis using the LES results shows that the secondary vortex has twofold effects on delaying the corner-flow separation: the convective transport of the streamwise momentum towards the corner, and the enhanced production of turbulence by increasing the shear. Also, the vorticity transport analysis reconfirms that the secondary motion is caused primarily by turbulence anisotropy in the outer layer of the turbulent boundary layer. Furthermore, a quadratic constitutive relation (QCR) is proposed based on the analysis of the relationship between the Reynolds stress and velocity gradient. The proposed QCR consists of two quadratic terms and three constant parameters. The a priori analysis using the LES data shows that the proposed QCR represents the anisotropy of the Reynolds stress overall better than the existing QCR. Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes simulation using the proposed QCR with the Spalart–Allmaras turbulence model shows improvements in the prediction of the corner-flow separation compared to the results obtained by the existing QCR with the same turbulence model.