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Published: 2003

Total Pages: 0

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Study of turbulence is of vital scientific, military and economic interest. Advances in several areas of external aerodynamics and internal combustor flows of interest to Air Force hinge on our ability to clearly understand and adequately predict the effects of turbulence. At the current time, however, there exists a substantial gap between our knowledge of the physics of turbulence phenomenon and the physics that is incorporated into turbulence models, especially subgrid closures. The disciplines of turbulence theory/analysis (e.g., rapid distortion theory, spectral closure models), high-order turbulence modeling (e.g., second-moment closures, structure-based models and realizability constraints) and turbulence simulation (DNS- direct numerical simulations, and LES- large eddy simulations) are evolving independently with very little cross fertilization of ideas. For example, the currently popular LES subgrid closures (e.g., Smagorinsky, dynamic Smagorinsky) are algebraic in nature; completely insensitive to extra rates of strain such as rotation, curvature, and buoyancy and, further, may not even be realizable. These major deficiencies in the LES-SGS modeling are tolerated despite the fact that, in higher order closures, these physical effects and mathematical constraints have long been represented adequately. Further, we would like to point out that the very premise of detached-eddy simulation (DES) approach - that is seen as the practical computational tool for turbulence - is erroneous. This is due to the fact that inhomogeneous spatial filtering is inevitable in this method, and yet the governing equations ignore the effects that necessarily arise with inhomogeneous filtering of the velocity field.