A Parametric Study of Turbulent Flow Past a Circular Cylinder Using Large Eddy Simulation

Flow over a circular cylinder at a Reynolds number of 3900 is investigated using large eddy simulations (LES) to assess the affect of four numerical parameters on the resulting flow-field. These parameters are subgrid scale (SGS) turbulence models, wall models, discretization of the advective terms in the governing equations, and grid resolution. A finite volume method is employed to solve the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations (NSE) on a structured grid. Results are compared to the experiments of Ong and Wallace (1996, “The Velocity Field of the Turbulent Very Near Wake of a Circular Cylinder,” Exp. Fluids, 20(6), pp. 441–453) and Lourenco and Shih (1993, “Characteristics of the Plane Turbulent Near Wake of a Circular Cylinder: A Particle Image Velocimetry Study,” private communication (taken from Ref. [2]); and the numerical results of Beaudan and Moin (1994, “Numerical Experiments on the Flow Past a Circular Cylinder at Sub-Critical Reynolds Number,” Technical Report No. TF-62), Kravchenko and Moin (2000, “Numerical Studies of Flow Over a Circular Cylinder at Re_D = 3900,” Phys. Fluids, 12(2), pp. 403–417), and Breuer (1998, “Numerical and Modelling Influences on Large Eddy Simulations for the Flow Past a Circular Cylinder,” Int. J. Heat Fluid Flow, 19(5), pp. 512–521). It is concluded that the effect of the SGS models is not significant; results with and without a wall model are inconsistent; nondissipative discretization schemes, such as central finite difference methods, are preferred over dissipative methods, such as upwind finite difference methods; and it is necessary to properly resolve the boundary layer in the vicinity of the cylinder in order to accurately model the complex flow phenomena in the cylinder wake. These conclusions are based on the analysis of bulk flow parameters and the distribution of mean and fluctuating quantities throughout the domain. In general, results show good agreement with the experimental and numerical data used for comparison.