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Study of compressible turbulent flows in supersonic environment by large-eddy simulation

Posted on:2010-02-25Degree:Ph.DType:Thesis
University:Georgia Institute of TechnologyCandidate:Genin, FranklinFull Text:PDF
GTID:2442390002484364Subject:Engineering
Abstract/Summary:
The numerical resolution of turbulent flows in high-speed environment is of fundamental importance but remains a very challenging problem. First, the capture of strong discontinuities, typical of high-speed flows, requires the use of shock-capturing schemes, which are not adapted to the resolution of turbulent structures due to their intrinsic dissipation. On the other hand, low-dissipation schemes are unable to resolve shock fronts and other sharp gradients without creating high amplitude numerical oscillations. Second, the nature of turbulence in high-speed flows differs from its incompressible behavior, and, in the context of Large-Eddy Simulation, the subgrid closure must be adapted to the modeling of compressibility effects and shock waves on turbulent flows.;The developments described in this thesis are two-fold. First, a state of the art closure approach for LES is extended to model subgrid turbulence in compressible flows. The energy transfers due to compressible turbulence and the diffusion of turbulent kinetic energy by pressure fluctuations are assessed and integrated in the Localized Dynamic ksgs model. Second, a hybrid numerical scheme is developed for the resolution of the LES equations and of the model transport equation, which combines a central scheme for turbulent resolutions to a shock-capturing method. A smoothness parameter is defined and used to switch from the base smooth solver to the upwind scheme in regions of discontinuities.;It is shown that the developed hybrid methodology permits a capture of shock/turbulence interactions in direct simulations that agrees well with other reference simulations, and that the LES methodology effectively reproduces the turbulence evolution and physical phenomena involved in the interaction. This numerical approach is then employed to study a problem of practical importance in high-speed mixing. The interaction of two shock waves with a high-speed turbulent shear layer as a mixing augmentation technique is considered. It is shown that the levels of turbulence are increased through the interaction, and that the mixing is significantly improved in this flow configuration. However, the region of increased mixing is found to be localized to a region close to the impact of the shocks, and that the statistical levels of turbulence relax to their undisturbed levels some short distance downstream of the interaction.;The present developments are finally applied to a practical configuration relevant to scramjet injection. The normal injection of a sonic jet into a supersonic crossflow is considered numerically, and compared to the results of an experimental study. A fair agreement in the statistics of mean and fluctuating velocity fields is obtained. Furthermore, some of the instantaneous flow structures observed in experimental visualizations are identified in the present simulation. The dynamics of the interaction for the reference case, based on the experimental study, as well as for a case of higher freestream Mach number and a case of higher momentum ratio, are examined. The classical instantaneous vortical structures are identified, and their generation mechanisms, specific to supersonic flow, are highlighted. Furthermore, two vortical structures, recently revealed in low-speed jets in crossflow but never documented for high-speed flows, are identified during the flow evolution.
Keywords/Search Tags:Flows, High-speed, Compressible, Supersonic, Numerical, Structures
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