A Numerical Investigation of the Turbulent Flow Field Generated by a Stationary Cube

Abstract

The turbulent flow field generated by a stationary cube at Reynolds numbers 2000 and 14,000 is investigated numerically. A vorticity-vector potential formulation of the equations of motion is employed. Turbulence effects are accounted for through the use of a vorticity transport closure scheme in which dynamical equations for vorticity mean and covariance are supplemented by a kinematic equation for turbulent kinetic energy. Semi-implicit finite difference approximations to the equations of motion are solved iteratively by a vectorizable 8-color SOR algorithm. The numerical mesh is designed so that the turbulent flow field can be computed down to solid surfaces without the use of wall functions. The properties of the computed flow field, including drag, axial velocity, separation points, and three-dimensional flow structure show good agreement with experimental observations of similar bluff body flows.