Inlet Turbulence Levels Research Articles

High-fidelity numerical investigation of a real gas annular cascade with experimental validation

This study aims at investigating real gas flow in the complex geometry of the Cambridge University annular turbine cascade using numerical simulations. The objectives include validating the numerical approach and understanding the loss mechanisms in this configuration. The numerical results are compared to experimental measurements obtained at various locations in the domain. Two turbulence modeling techniques, large Eddy simulation (LES) and Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS), are employed to assess the influence of turbulence models and inlet turbulence levels. The results show good agreement between numerical simulations and experimental measurements in regions upstream of the trailing edge. However, discrepancies arise in the transition region of the suction side boundary layer, and RANS results are influenced by the choice of turbulence injection. In the wake of the blade, both RANS and LES accurately predict the stagnation pressure ratio, with some slight differences in shock positions and total pressure levels. The analysis reveals that large vortical structures at the hub contribute significantly to the overall losses in this annular configuration. The study quantifies losses due to boundary layers, the wake, and vortical structures using a loss coefficient, with RANS and LES producing slightly different results. These differences, while calling for further experimental measurements, also hint at the possible inaccuracy of the present turbulence models in the context of real gas flows for which a dedicated modeling effort is required.

A low-order wake interaction modeling framework for the performance of ocean current turbines under turbulent conditions

Understanding the effects of ambient turbulence (expressed often in terms of the turbulence intensity It) is critical to the development of predictive models for the performance of Ocean Current Turbine (OCTs). This paper describes a new, wake interaction modeling framework capable of capturing the detailed effects of turbulence on various performance parameters associated with OCTs that may be arranged in any arbitrary configuration. The model accounts for the effects of turbulence on the structure of the turbine wakes, specifically the extents of near- and far-wake regions, and the dependence of the transition point between the two regions on It. The analytical description for turbine wake is combined with an existing wake interaction model, the Unrestricted Wind Farm Layout Optimization (UWFLO) model to predict the global power output from an array of OCTs. The resulting modelling framework accurately captures the effect of inlet turbulence on the OCT farm power and efficiency, and can be applied to any array configuration. Results from the model are validated against Large Eddy Simulations (LES) in which the OCTs are modeled using the Blade Element Momentum (BEM) model, while the inlet flow is superposed with a synthetic turbulence field designed to approximate turbulence properties obtained from observational measurements of the Gulf Stream. The simulations show that OCT wakes recover faster at higher levels of inlet turbulence due to the enhanced entrainment and mixing between ambient flow and the wake, an effect that is captured by the modified UWFLO model.

Virtual Replica of a Towing Tank Experiment to Determine the Kelvin Half-Angle of a Ship in Restricted Water

The numerical simulation of ship flows has evolved into a highly practical approach in naval architecture. In typical virtual towing tanks, the principle of Galilean relativity is invoked to maintain the ship as fixed, while the surrounding water is prescribed to flow past it. This assumption may be identified, at least partly, as being responsible for the wide-scale adoption of computational solutions within practitioners’ toolkits. However, it carries several assumptions, such as the levels of inlet turbulence and their effect on flow properties. This study presents an alternative virtual towing tank, where the ship is simulated to advance over a stationary fluid. To supplement the present work, the free surface disturbance is processed into Fourier space to determine the Kelvin half-angle for an example case. The results suggest that it is possible to construct a fully unsteady virtual towing tank using the overset method, without relying on Galilean relativity. Differences between theoretical and numerical predictions for the Kelvin half-angle are predominantly attributed to the assumptions used by the theoretical method. The methods presented in this work can potentially be used to validate free-surface flows, even when one does not have access to experimental wave elevation data.

Effects of Reynolds number and loading distribution on the aerodynamic performance of a high subsonic compressor airfoil

The laminar-turbulent transition process on the compressor blade surface is often induced by the laminar separation flow at low Reynolds number ( Re). In the present study, numerical simulations were conducted to investigate the structure of the laminar separation bubble and its effects on the profile loss of a high subsonic compressor airfoil under different Re conditions, and the mechanism for the performance deterioration of compressor airfoil at low Re was clarified. Besides, the airfoil was redesigned to obtain a series of airfoils with different loading distributions, and the aerodynamic performance of these airfoils was compared and analyzed in detail. According to the simulation results, the laminar separation bubble mainly determined the loss generation process of a compressor airfoil. When Re decreased from 12 × 105 to 1.5 × 105, the laminar separation bubble on the suction surface grew thicker and the length was increased by 11.2% of the axial chord. As such, the reversed flow inside the laminar separation bubble became more obvious and the turbulence level downstream of the maximum thickness of laminar separation bubble was increased. Also, the growth in the turbulent boundary layer was enhanced, causing more serious flow blockage and wake mixing. According to the Denton's profile loss model, the larger trailing edge loss caused by the stronger displacement effect of laminar separation bubble was supposed to be the main reason for the performance deterioration of compressor airfoil under low Re conditions. The ultra-front loading distribution for airfoil has the possibility to suppress or even eliminate the negative effect of laminar separation bubble, and the profile loss was decreased by 26.7% at Re = 1.5 × 105; however, the less significant performance improvement was observed at some higher Re. Moreover, the ultra-front loaded airfoil was less sensitive to the inlet turbulence level and the superiority still holds even at some supercritical conditions.

On correction factors in thermal-hydraulic correlations for compact fin-tube bundles

Heat exchanger designers need reliable thermal hydraulic correlations to optimize heat exchanger designs, particularly when a compact volume is desired. Current correlations for circular fin-tube bundles typically employ a flow velocity dependent term and a number of correction terms to account for geometry variations and other flow conditions. This paper evaluates five phenomena that influence thermal-hydraulic performance and discusses them in relation to current models for heat transfer and pressure drop. The varied parameters are the direction of heat flow (gas heating or gas cooling), the fin type (annular or helically wound), the fin efficiency, the fin pitch, the number of streamwise tube rows and the inlet turbulence level. A validated numerical model is used to produce Nusselt and Euler numbers for more than 30 helically wound fin-tube geometries in a staggered equilateral triangle layout. A few selected geometries are further analyzed in detail. Results indicate that a large gas-to-tube temperature difference, a low fin pitch or a high thermal effectiveness can lead to situations where some of the current models for heat transfer, pressure drop or fin efficiency perform poorly. Specifically, pressure drop is shown to be 25% higher for helical fin-tubes under gas heating conditions than for equivalent annular fin-tubes under gas cooling conditions, which is not considered by most correlations. Fin efficiencies can, further, be in error by more than 20%, which can partially be attributed to flow passing outside the fin diameter. More data is, however, needed to characterize these effects thoroughly in the general case.

Pocket formation and behavior in turbulent premixed flames

Pocket formation is an important characteristic of turbulent premixed flames and understanding pocket behavior is key to developing high-fidelity numerical combustion models. In this study, a dual-burner experiment is used to study pockets in single- and dual-flame configurations and synchronized high-speed OH-planar laser-induced fluorescence and stereoscopic-particle image velocimetry imaging techniques are implemented to track flame pockets and the surrounding flow field. Statistical analysis of pocket origin and fate is performed using a novel tracking algorithm incorporating non-rigid image registration. Results show that pocket formation rates increase as a function of increasing inlet turbulence level; reactant pocket formation increases as a function of downstream distance, whereas product pocket formation decreases. Tracking reactant pocket lifetime shows that a majority of these pockets burn out and displacement speeds are characterized. Product pockets usually merge with the main flame surface, which could have an impact on local flame structure and propagation. Results presented in this study show that pocket behavior in turbulent flames can change local flame dynamics and it is important to capture these effects in sub-grid scale combustion models to accurately predict flame behavior.

Optimal dynamic induction control of a pair of inline wind turbines

We study dynamic induction control for mitigating the wake losses of a pair of inline wind turbines. In order to explore control strategies that account for unsteady interactions with the flow, we employ optimal control and adjoint-based optimization in combination with large-eddy simulations. The turbines are represented with an actuator line model. We consider a simple uniform inflow case with two NREL 5 MW turbines spaced 5 diameters apart and find that optimal control leads to 25% gains compared to standard Maximum-Power-Point Tracking (MPPT). It is further found that only the control dynamics of the first turbine are changed, improving wake mixing, while the second turbine controller remains close to the MPPT control. We further synthesize the optimal generator torque and blade pitch controls of the first turbine into a signal that can be periodically used as an open-loop controller, with a Strouhal number of 0.38, while realizing the same gains as the original optimal control signal. Further analysis of the improved wake mixing resulting from the open-loop signal reveals periodic shedding of a three-vortex ring system, which interacts and merges downstream of the first turbine, increasing entrainment of high-speed momentum into the wake. The sensitivity of the open-loop signal to inlet turbulence levels and turbine spacing is also investigated. At low to medium turbulence levels, the control remains effective, while at higher levels, the coherence of the vortex rings degrades too fast for them to remain effective.

Design and Validation of a Recirculating, High-Reynolds Number Water Tunnel

Commercial water tunnels typically generate a momentum thickness based Reynolds number (Reθ) ∼1000, which is slightly above the laminar to turbulent transition. The current work compiles the literature on the design of high-Reynolds number facilities and uses it to design a high-Reynolds number recirculating water tunnel that spans the range between commercial water tunnels and the largest in the world. The final design has a 1.1 m long test-section with a 152 mm square cross section that can reach speed of 10 m/s, which corresponds to Reθ=15,000. Flow conditioning via a tandem configuration of honeycombs and settling-chambers combined with an 8.5:1 area contraction resulted in an average test-section inlet turbulence level <0.3% and negligible mean shear in the test-section core. The developing boundary layer on the test-section walls conform to a canonical zero-pressure-gradient (ZPG) flat-plate turbulent boundary layer (TBL) with the outer variable scaled profile matching a 1/7th power-law fit, inner variable scaled velocity profiles matching the log-law and a shape factor of 1.3.

Combustion of wood-chips in a small-scale fixed-bed boiler: Validation of the numerical model through in-flame measurements

Experimental campaigns and numerical simulations were carried out to investigate the effect of air distribution on the performance of a small-scale fixed-bed boiler fed with biomass. Despite the small dimension of the fire pit, temperature measurements just above it showed a large spatial variation, thus indicating that modeling approaches based on perfectly stirred reactor conditions for the biomass bed are not suited. Moreover these approaches, often used for small boilers, suffer of high uncertainty related to the inlet turbulence levels that affect the mixing of reactants and thus reaction rates. Instead the representation of the biomass bed as a porous medium with defined sources and sinks of chemical species and energy, may provide a cheap and effective strategy to take into account the distribution of the primary air and overcome uncertainties on inlet turbulence. Results are encouraging with a good prediction of the trends of the available measurements. Significant discrepancies were noticed in some locations, hence calling for further efforts to improve the description of the kinetics as well as of the biomass dimensional distribution needed for the definition of the porous medium.

Experimental Investigation of Pressure Side Flow Separation on the T106C Airfoil at High Suction Side Incidence Flow

The objective of this work is to study the influence of a pressure side separation bubble on the profile losses and the development of the bubble in the blade passage. For the experimental investigations, the T106 profile is used, with an increased loading due to an enlarged pitch to chord ratio from 0.799 to 0.95 (T106C). The experiments were performed at the high-speed cascade wind tunnel of the Institute of Jet Propulsion at the University of the Federal Armed Forces Munich. The main feature of the wind tunnel is to vary Reynolds and Mach number independently to achieve realistic turbomachinery conditions. The focus of this work is to determine the influence of a pressure side separation on the profile losses and hence the robustness to suction side incidence flow. The cascade is tested at four incidence angles from 0 deg to −22.7 deg to create separation bubbles of different sizes. The influence of the Reynolds number is investigated for a wide range at constant exit Mach number. Therefore, a typical exit Mach number for low pressure turbines in the range of 0.5–0.8 is chosen in order to consider compressible effects. Furthermore, two inlet turbulence levels of about 3% and 7.5% have been considered. The characteristics of the separation bubble are identified by using the profile pressure distributions, whereas wake traverses with a five hole probe are used to determine the influence of the pressure side separation on the profile losses. Further, time-resolved pressure measurements near the trailing edge as well as single hot wire measurements in the blade passage are conducted to investigate the unsteady behavior of the pressure side separation process itself and also its influence on the midspan passage flow.

Effects of Inflow Conditions on Wind Turbine Performance and near Wake Structure

Knowledge about the structure and development of wakes behind wind turbines is important for power optimization of wind power farms. The high turbulence levels in the wakes give rise to undesired unsteady loadings on the downstream turbines, which in the long run might cause fatigue damages. In the present study, the near wake behind a small-scale model wind turbine was investigated experimentally in a wind tunnel. The study consists of measurements with particle image velocimetry using two different inlet conditions: a freely developing boundary layer, causing an almost uniform inflow across the rotor disc, and an inflow with strong shear across the rotor disc, in order to model the atmospheric boundary layer. The results show a faster recovery of the wake in the case with shear inflow, caused by the higher turbulence levels and enhanced mixing of momentum. The increased inlet turbulence levels in this case also resulted in a faster breakdown of the tip vortices as well as different distributions of the streamwise and vertical components of the turbulence intensity in the wake. An analysis comparing vortex statistics for the two cases also showed the presence of strong tip vortices in the case with lower inlet turbulence, while the case with higher inlet turbulence developed a different distribution of vortices in the wake.

High fidelity simulation and analysis of liquid jet atomization in a gaseous crossflow at intermediate Weber numbers

Recent advances in numerical methods coupled with the substantial enhancements in computing power and the advent of high performance computing have presented first principle, high fidelity simulation as a viable tool in the prediction and analysis of spray atomization processes. The credibility and potential impact of such simulations, however, has been hampered by the relative absence of detailed validation against experimental evidence. The numerical stability and accuracy challenges arising from the need to simulate the high liquid-gas density ratio across the sharp interfaces encountered in these flows are key reasons for this. In this work we challenge this status quo by presenting a numerical model able to deal with these challenges, employing it in simulations of liquid jet in crossflow atomization and performing extensive validation of its results against a carefully executed experiment with detailed measurements in the atomization region. We then proceed to the detailed analysis of the flow physics. The computational model employs the coupled level set and volume of fluid approach to directly capture the spatiotemporal evolution of the liquid-gas interface and the sharp-interface ghost fluid method to stably handle high liquid-air density ratio. Adaptive mesh refinement and Lagrangian droplet models are shown to be viable options for computational cost reduction. Moreover, high performance computing is leveraged to manage the computational cost. The experiment selected for validation eliminates the impact of inlet liquid and gas turbulence and focuses on the impact of the crossflow aerodynamic forces on the atomization physics. Validation is demonstrated by comparing column surface wavelengths, deformation, breakup locations, column trajectories and droplet sizes, velocities, and mass rates for a range of intermediate Weber numbers. Analysis of the physics is performed in terms of the instability and breakup characteristics and the features of downstream flow recirculation, and vortex shedding. Formation of “Λ” shape windward column waves is observed and explained by the combined upward and lateral surface motion. The existence of Rayleigh-Taylor instability as the primary mechanism for the windward column waves is verified for this case by comparing wavelengths from the simulations to those predicted by linear stability analyses. Physical arguments are employed to postulate that the type of instability manifested may be related to conditions such as the gas Weber number and the inlet turbulence level. The decreased column wavelength with increasing Weber number is found to cause enhanced surface stripping and early depletion of liquid core at higher Weber number. A peculiar “three-streak-two-membrane” liquid structure is identified at the lowest Weber number and explained as the consequence of the symmetric recirculation zones behind the jet column. It is found that the vortical flow downstream of the liquid column resembles a von Karman vortex street and that the coupling between the gas flow and droplet transport is weak for the conditions explored.

Experimental Validation Benchmark Data for Computational Fluid Dynamics of Transient Convection From Forced to Natural With Flow Reversal on a Vertical Flat Plate

Transient convection has been investigated experimentally for the purpose of providing computational fluid dynamics (CFD) validation benchmark data. A specialized facility for validation benchmark experiments called the rotatable buoyancy tunnel (RoBuT) was used to acquire thermal and velocity measurements of flow over a smooth, vertical heated plate in air. The initial condition was forced convection downward with subsequent transition to mixed convection, ending with natural convection upward after a flow reversal. Data acquisition through the transient was repeated for ensemble-averaged results. With simple flow geometry, validation data were acquired at the benchmark level. All boundary conditions (BCs) were measured and their uncertainties quantified. Temperature profiles on all the four walls and the inlet were measured, as well as as-built test section geometry. Inlet velocity profiles and turbulence levels were quantified using particle image velocimetry (PIV). System response quantities (SRQs) were measured for comparison with CFD outputs and include velocity profiles, wall heat flux, and wall shear stress. Extra effort was invested in documenting and preserving the validation data. Details about the experimental facility, instrumentation, experimental procedure, materials, BCs, and SRQs are made available through this paper. The latter two are available for download while other details are included in this work.

A New Experimental Facility to Investigate Combustor–Turbine Interactions in Gas Turbines With Multiple Can Combustors

This paper describes a new modular experimental facility that was purpose-built to investigate flow interactions between the combustor and first stage nozzle guide vanes (NGVs) of heavy duty power generation gas turbines with multiple can combustors. The first stage turbine NGV is subjected to the highest thermal loads of all turbine components and therefore consumes a proportionally large amount of cooling air that contributes detrimentally to the stage and cycle efficiency. It has become necessary to devise novel cooling concepts that can substantially reduce the coolant air requirement but still allow the turbine to maintain its aerothermal performance. The present work aims to aid this objective by the design and commissioning of a high-speed linear cascade, which consists of two can combustor transition ducts and four first stage NGVs. This is a modular nonreactive air test platform with engine realistic geometries (gas path and near gas path), cooling system, and boundary conditions (inlet swirl, turbulence level, and boundary layer). The paper presents the various design aspects of the high pressure (HP) blow down type facility, and the initial results from a wide range of aerodynamic and heat transfer measurements under highly engine realistic conditions.

Compressible Direct Numerical Simulation of Low-Pressure Turbines—Part I: Methodology

Modern low pressure turbines (LPT) feature high pressure ratios and moderate Mach and Reynolds numbers, increasing the possibility of laminar boundary-layer separation on the blades. Upstream disturbances including background turbulence and incoming wakes have a profound effect on the behavior of separation bubbles and the type/location of laminar-turbulent transition and therefore need to be considered in LPT design. Unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (URANS) are often found inadequate to resolve the complex wake dynamics and impact of these environmental parameters on the boundary layers and may not drive the design to the best aerodynamic efficiency. LES can partly improve the accuracy, but has difficulties in predicting boundary layer transition and capturing the delay of laminar separation with varying inlet turbulence levels. Direct numerical simulation (DNS) is able to overcome these limitations but has to date been considered too computationally expensive. Here, a novel compressible DNS code is presented and validated, promising to make DNS practical for LPT studies. Also, the sensitivity of wake loss coefficient with respect to freestream turbulence levels below 1% is discussed.

Four-way coupled simulations of the gas–particle flow in a diffuser

In this work, a numerical investigation on the gas–particle flow in a vertical diffuser is carried out. This study was motivated by the experimental work of by Kale and Eaton (1984), who noticed that the fully attached flow in a diffuser in the freeboard region of a particle bed would become detached if no particles were present. It was concluded at the time that this effect was not caused by the high inlet turbulence levels, but rather by the particles. With the goal to better understand the interactions between the particles and the fluid in a diffuser, simulations of the particle-laden gas flow in a vertical conical diffuser are run using the Euler/Lagrange approach. The model, which includes particle-to-particle collisions, the particle influence on the gas phase and wall roughness effects, is first validated based on experimental results from a horizontal channel and a vertical diffuser for both the continuous and dispersed phases at different mass loadings. Investigations on the effects of particles at different mass loadings and wall roughness on the diffuser flow are then carried out. It has been found that, even at moderate mass loadings, particles can significantly affect the diffuser flow pattern, and actually reattach the otherwise separated flow under some conditions. It has also been found that wall roughness plays a very important role in homogenizing the particle distribution at the diffuser section. The resulting more uniform concentration and velocity profiles can then reenergize the separated boundary layer and reattach it to the wall. The mechanism for the flow reattachment owing to the high wall roughness is investigated and an explanation is proposed.

The Effect of Acoustic Excitation on Boundary Layer Separation of a Highly Loaded LPT Blade

An experimental investigation of the effect of acoustic excitation on the boundary layer development of a highly loaded low-pressure turbine blade at low-Reynolds number is investigated. The aim of this work is to study the effect of excitation at select frequencies on separation which could give indications about active flow control exploitation. The front-loaded L2F blade is tested in a low-speed linear cascade. The uncontrolled flow presents a separation bubble on the suction surface at Reynolds numbers below 40,000. For these conditions, the instability of the shear layer is documented using hot-wire anemometry. A loudspeaker upstream of the cascade is directed towards the passage inlet section. A parametric study on the effect of amplitude and frequency is carried out. The effect of the excitation frequency is observed to delay separation for a range of frequencies. However, the control authority of sound is found to be most effective at the fundamental frequency of the shear layer. The amplitude of perturbation is significant in the outcome of control until a threshold value is reached. PIV measurements allow a deeper understanding of the mechanisms leading to the reduction of separation. Data has been acquired with a low inlet turbulence level (<1%) in order to provide a cleaner environment which magnifies the effects of the excitation frequency, and with an increased turbulence intensity level of 3% which is representative of more typical engine values. Integrated wake loss values are also presented to evaluate the effect on blade performance.

Uncertainty quantification and film cooling

In gas turbine cooling, hundreds of ducts are fed by common plenums connected to small channels. The inlet stagnation pressure, temperature and turbulence levels are unknown in the ducts and subjected to a strong variability, due to the uncertainty associated with operating conditions and/or manufacturing defects. Despite the uncertainty level in boundary values, it is a common practice to use deterministic values.In this work, a Monte Carlo Method Lattice Sampling (MCMLS) and a Probabilistic Collocation Method (PCM) are used to assess the uncertainty quantification problem in film cooling. By assuming truncated Gaussian distributions for the inlet total pressures, 242 CFD simulations have been performed for MCMLS and the probabilistic distribution of the adiabatic effectiveness is obtained. It provides the average value for the stochastic output and the level of confidence related to that value. The results show that about 20% variation in the stochastic inputs provides a variation of the adiabatic effectiveness of about 100%, and reduces the blade life by more than five times.The MCMLS is robust and accurate, less computational expensive than a standard MCM but still computationally expensive for everyday design. Therefore, using the MCMLS as baseline, an innovative technique has been proposed: the Probabilistic Collocation Method (PCM), in order to both reduce the number of simulations and obtain accurate results. The developed PCM methodology is 10 times faster than the MCMLS with negligible differences in the results. This work shows that in nowadays design, computational fluid dynamics must use stochastic methods and it is possible to integrate probabilistic analysis in the design phase to investigate the robustness by using PCM and MCMLS.

Multilaboratory Particle Image Velocimetry Analysis of the FDA Benchmark Nozzle Model to Support Validation of Computational Fluid Dynamics Simulations

This study is part of a FDA-sponsored project to evaluate the use and limitations of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) in assessing blood flow parameters related to medical device safety. In an interlaboratory study, fluid velocities and pressures were measured in a nozzle model to provide experimental validation for a companion round-robin CFD study. The simple benchmark nozzle model, which mimicked the flow fields in several medical devices, consisted of a gradual flow constriction, a narrow throat region, and a sudden expansion region where a fluid jet exited the center of the nozzle with recirculation zones near the model walls. Measurements of mean velocity and turbulent flow quantities were made in the benchmark device at three independent laboratories using particle image velocimetry (PIV). Flow measurements were performed over a range of nozzle throat Reynolds numbers (Re(throat)) from 500 to 6500, covering the laminar, transitional, and turbulent flow regimes. A standard operating procedure was developed for performing experiments under controlled temperature and flow conditions and for minimizing systematic errors during PIV image acquisition and processing. For laminar (Re(throat)=500) and turbulent flow conditions (Re(throat)≥3500), the velocities measured by the three laboratories were similar with an interlaboratory uncertainty of ∼10% at most of the locations. However, for the transitional flow case (Re(throat)=2000), the uncertainty in the size and the velocity of the jet at the nozzle exit increased to ∼60% and was very sensitive to the flow conditions. An error analysis showed that by minimizing the variability in the experimental parameters such as flow rate and fluid viscosity to less than 5% and by matching the inlet turbulence level between the laboratories, the uncertainties in the velocities of the transitional flow case could be reduced to ∼15%. The experimental procedure and flow results from this interlaboratory study (available at http://fdacfd.nci.nih.gov) will be useful in validating CFD simulations of the benchmark nozzle model and in performing PIV studies on other medical device models.

Effect of Inflow Boundary Conditions on the Turbulence Solution in Internal Flows

A FULLY implicit numerical method for the solution of threedimensional transport equations of fluid dynamics cast in generalized curvilinear coordinates has been enhanced to demonstrate the effect of inflow conditions on the downstream development of internal flow in a channel. The effect of inlet boundary conditions on turbulence kinetic energy k and the dissipation rate on the downstream developing flow is assessed in terms of local values of k and Reynolds stress profiles. It is shown that the effect of inflow conditions lasts well over tens of channel heights downstream, before the flow eventually attains a fully developed state. This has an important bearing on turbulent flow (especially internal turbulent flow) simulation results where the characteristic dimensions of interest of engineering systems are much shorter. In some simulations, the solution sought may be in serious error if the inflow conditions chosen are not physically realistic. It is therefore important to account for the effect of wind-tunnel inlet turbulence levels when comparing wind-tunnel experimental data with predictions from a given flow simulation. This study serves as a guide in the prescription of inflow boundary conditions on k and in simulating laminar to turbulence transition in such flows. Also, the enhanced fully implicit method presented here is demonstrated to improve the convergence to steady state by 2 orders of magnitude for a fully developed turbulent channelflow at Reynolds numbers (based on the channel height) of 7700 and 12,300 with the Chien kturbulence model over the previous semi-implicit method developed by the author, where the source terms are treated explicitly. For the case of downstream developing flow, 4 orders of magnitude improvement in convergence to steady state has been realized. The solution of transport equations in fluid dynamics involves solving mixed parabolic-hyperbolic systems. Some of these systems can be very stiff and demanding on the computational resources. Thus, they can require long integration times to achieve a steady state. One such stiff system is a two-equation set of partial differential equations governing turbulence kinetic energy, k, and its dissipation rate, . These two quantities define the dynamic turbulence viscosity, t, required for a Reynolds Averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) computation, according to the relation