Section: Research Program

Turbulence Modelling

Participants : Boniface Nkonga, Richard Pasquetti.

Fluid turbulence has a paradoxical situation in science. The Navier-Stokes equations are an almost perfect model that can be applied to any flow. However, they cannot be solved for any flow of direct practical interest. Turbulent flows involve instability and strong dependence to parameters, chaotic succession of more or less organised phenomena, small and large scales interacting in a complex manner. It is generally necessary to find a compromise between neglecting a huge number of small events and predicting more or less accurately some larger events and trends.

In this direction, Castor  wishes to contribute to the progress of methods for the prediction of fluid turbulence. Taking benefit of its experience in numerical methods for complex applications, Castor  works out models for predicting flows around complex obstacles, that can be moved or deformed by the flow, and involving large turbulent structures. Taking into account our ambition to provide also short term methods for industrial problems, we consider methods applying to high Reynolds flows, and in particular, methods hybridizing Large Eddy Simulation (LES) with Reynolds Averaging.

Turbulence is the indirect cause of many other phenomena. Fluid-structure interaction is one of them, and can manifest itself for example in Vortex Induced Motion or Vibration. These phenomena can couple also with liquid-gas interfaces and bring new problems. Of particular interest is also the study of turbulence generated noise. In this field, though acoustic phenomena can also in principle be described by the Navier-Stokes equations, they are not generally numerically solved by flow solvers but rather by specialized linear and nonlinear acoustic solvers. An important question is the investigation of the best way to combine a LES simulation with the acoustic propagation of the waves it produces.