Calculations of turbulent flow through a staggered tube bank

Paper in proceeding, 2017

The primary aim of this paper is to numerically investigate the crossflow in a staggered tube bank by using a variable-resolution method. Experimental data of Simonin and Barcoude (1988) is available in the ERCOFTAC database. There are also few ERCOFTAC workshops, e.g. 1993, 19999, which were considering this test case primarily for checking the performance of the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) models. Therefore, there are number of results with very different models which can be found in the literature. The work presented here aims to add one more set of results but this time with recently advanced variable resolution method, namely the Partially-Averaged Navier-Stokes (PANS). This method (Girimaji, 2006) belongs to so called bridging or seamless methods. The PANS approach adjusts seamlessly from the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) to the Direct Numerical Solution (DNS) of the Navier-Stokes equation. The results are largely improved by using the PANS as for example shown in Basara (2015). This turbulence bridging method is derived from the RANS model equations. It inevitably improves results when compared with its corresponding RANS model if more scales of motions are resolved. This is done by varying the unresolved-to-total ratios of kinetic energy and dissipation. In the practice, the parameter which determines the unresolved-to-total kinetic energy ratio is defined by using the grid spacing and calculated integral length scale of turbulence. When the grid size is smaller, then more of the turbulent kinetic energy can be resolved. Usually, the integral scale of turbulence is obtained by summing up resolved turbulence, calculated as difference between instantaneous filtered velocity and the averaged velocity field, and unresolved turbulence obtained from its own equation. The turbulence model adopted in the present PANS variant is the four-equation ζ - f formulation (Hanjalic et al., 2004) which is the variant of more known v2-f model based on the elliptic relaxation concept.). As this model represents a practical and accurate RANS choice for a wide range of industrial applications, especially when used in conjunction with the universal wall approach (Popovac and Hanjalic, 2007, Basara, 2006), its PANS variant therefore guarantees that the proper near-wall model is used when fkis of a higher value. Therefore, the near-wall PANS variant of Basara et al. (2011) was used in the present study. The PANS model is implemented into the commercial CFD code AVL FIRE (AVL FIRE Manual, 2011).