Large-eddy simulations are carried out to study the combined effects of roughness and favourable pressure gradient in boundary layer flows, where the high acceleration (on smooth walls) may cause flow reversion to the quasi-laminar state. A sand-grain roughness model is used, with the no-slip boundary condition modeled by an immersed boundary method. The properties and accuracies of the scheme are studied, the roughness model is validated, and the spatial-resolution requirements are determined. The roughness model is applied to boundary layers subject to mild or strong acceleration, with simulations carried out underlining the effects of three parameters: the acceleration parameter, the roughness height, and the inlet Reynolds number. The roughness effects are limited to the roughness sublayer; the outer layer is affected indirectly only, through the changes that roughness causes in the relaminarization and retransition processes. The roughness significantly affects the inner-layer quantities like the friction velocity and the friction coefficient, while the local Reynolds number, the outer-layer mean velocity, as well as the Reynolds stresses beyond the roughness sublayer, are not sensitive to the roughness. The acceleration decreases the Reynolds stresses in the overlap region and promotes a laminar-like velocity profile. The acceleration leads to stabilization of near-wall structures and causes one-dimensional turbulence. The roughness generates small-scale structures at the bottom wall, which disturb the larger structures originally stabilized by the pressure gradient, leading to a decrease in the Reynolds-stress anisotropy. Roughness increases the Reynolds stresses in the roughness sublayer and tends to restore the fully turbulence flow early. The inlet Reynolds number affects the flow stability by determining the viscous length scale compared to the roughness length scales, and by determining how far the roughness effect extents into the boundary layer. / Thesis (Master, Mechanical and Materials Engineering) -- Queen's University, 2011-10-17 11:19:08.063

In the present doctoral work we have developed and tested a model for dissolved oxygen (DO) transfer from water to underlying flat and cohesive sediment beds populated with DO-absorbing bacteria. The model couples Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) of turbulent transport in the water-column, a biogeochemical model for DO transport and consumption in the sediment, and Darcy’s Law for the pore water-driven solute dispersion and advection. The model’s predictions compare well against experimental data for low friction-Reynolds numbers (Re). The disagreement for higher Re is investigated by progressively increasing the complexity of the model. A sensitivity analysis shows that the sediment-oxygen uptake (or demand, SOD) is approximately proportional to the bacterial content of the sediment layer, and varies with respect to fluid dynamics conditions, in accordance to classic high-Schmidt-number mass-transfer laws. The non- linear transport dynamics responsible for sustaining a statistically steady SOD are investigated by temporal- and-spatial correlations and with the aid of instantaneous visualizations: the near-wall coherent structures modulate the diffusive sublayer, which exhibits complex spatial and temporal filtering behaviours; its slow and quasi-periodic regeneration cycle determines the streaky structure of the DO field at the sediment-water interface (SWI), retained in the deeper layers of the porous medium. Oxygen depletion dynamics are then simulated by preventing surface re-areation with turbulent mixing driven by an oscillating low-speed current — an idealization of hypolimnetic DO depletion in the presence of a non-equilibrium periodic forcing. The oxygen distribution exhibits a self-similar pattern of decay with, during the deceleration phase, oscillations modulated by the periodic ejection of peaks of high turbulent mass flux (pumping oxygen towards the SWI), generated at the edge of the diffusive sublayer at the end of the acceleration phase. These fronts of highly turbulent mixing propagate away from the SWI, at approximately constant speed, in layers of below-average oxygen concentration. Finally, the model has been tested in a real geophysical framework, reproducing published in-situ DO measurements of a transitional flow in the bottom boundary layer of lake Alpnach. A simple model for the SOD is then derived for eventual inclusion in RANSE biogeochemical management-type models for similar applications. / Thesis (Ph.D, Mechanical and Materials Engineering) -- Queen's University, 2012-07-04 11:13:24.936

In this thesis, wall-resolved and wall-modeled large-eddy simulation (LES) have been employed to investigate turbulent flow and dispersion around a single and a group of wall-mounted bluff bodies which are partially and fully submerged in developing boundary layers, respectively. The dispersion is caused by a continuous release of a passive scalar from a ground-level point source located within the matrix of obstacles. The results have been validated through comparisons against the available experimental measurement data. Thorough physical analysis including investigation of the spatial evolution and temporal cascades of the kinetic and scalar energies, flow structures and their influences on dispersion of the concentration plume in the context of highly disturbed flows, and study of turbulence statistics for the flow and concentration fields have been performed to provide deeper insights into turbulent flow and dispersion in domains with complex geometries. An in-house code based on FORTRAN programming language, parallelized with MPI libraries has been developed, modified and optimized for conducting the simulations. The simulations have been conducted on public-domain supercomputers ofWest-Grid, specifically Orcinus and Grex, and also the local 256-core cluster system of the CFD LAB at the University of Manitoba.

Since its introduction in 1997, the use of Detached Eddy Simulation (DES) and similar hybrid turbulence techniques has become increasingly popular in the field of CFD. However, with increased use some of the limitations of the DES model have become apparent. One of these is the dependence of DES on grid construction, particularly regarding the point of transition between the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes and Large Eddy Simulation models. An additional issue that arises with unstructured grids is the definition of the grid spacing in the implementation of a DES length scale. To lay the ground work to study these effects the Spalart-Allmaras one-equation turbulence model, SA based DES hybrid turbulence model, and the Scale Adaptive Simulation hybrid turbulence model are implemented in an unstructured grid CFD code, UNCLE. The implemented SA based DES model is validated for flow over a three-dimensional circular cylinder for three different turbulent Reynolds numbers. Validation included studying the pressure, skin friction coefficient, centerline velocity distributions averaged in time and space. Tools to output the mean velocity profiles and Reynolds stresses were developed. A grid generation code was written to generate a two/three dimensional circular cylinder grid to simulate flow over the cylinder in UNCLE. The models implemented and validated, and the additional tools mentioned will be used in the future.

A sub-grid scale closure for Large Eddy Simulation (LES) of turbulent combustion, based on physical space filtering of laminar flames is presented. The proposed formalism relies on a presumed probability density function (PDF) derived from the filtered laminar flames and flamelet tabulated chemistry. The combustion LES filter size is not fixed in this novel approach when sub-grid scale wrinkling occurs, but calibrated depending on the local level of unresolved scalar fluctuations. The model was validated by simulating 1D filtered laminar flames and 2D Bunsen flames. Subsequently, the model was tested on a 3D turbulent scenario by performing LES of the premixed and stratified configurations of the Cambridge swirl burner, experimentally studied by Sweeney and co-workers. Comparison of simulation and experiments for both the premixed and stratified configurations showed good agreement emphasizing the model characteristiscs. Instantaneous and time averaged LES data were analyzed to extract

For many decades, turbulence has been the subject of extensive numerical research and experimental work. A bottleneck problem in turbulence research has been to detect and characterize the energetic, space and time-dependent structures and give a mathematical definition to each topology. This research presents a fundamental study of coherent structures, embedded in turbulent flows, by use of Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (POD). The target is to detect dominant features which contain the largest fraction of the total kinetic energy and hence contribute more to a turbulent flow. POD is proven to be a robust methodology in multivariate analysis of non-linear problems. This method also helps to obtain a low-dimensional approximation of a high-dimensional process, like a turbulent flow. This manuscript-based dissertation consists of five chapters. The first chapter starts with a brief introduction to turbulence, available simulation techniques, limitations and practical applications. Next, POD is introduced and the step-by-step approach is explained in detail. Three submitted manuscripts are presented in the subsequent chapters. Each chapter starts with introducing the study case and explaining the contribution of the study to the whole topic and also has its topic-relevant literature review. Each article consists of two parts: flow simulation and verification of the results at the onset, followed by POD analysis and reconstruction of the turbulent flow fields. For flow simulation, Large Eddy Simulation (LES) was performed to obtain databases for POD analysis. The simulations were validated by making comparison with available experimental and numerical studies. For each case, coherent topologies are characterized and the contribution of kinetic energy for each structure is determined and compared with previous literature. The first manuscript focused on investigating the large-scale dynamics in the wake of an infinite square cylinder. This case is the first step towards the targeting study case of this research, i.e. flow over rib roughened walls. The main purpose the first step is to establish a benchmark for comparison to the more complicated cases of a square cylinder with a nearby wall and flow over a rib-roughened surface. For POD analysis, the three-dimensional velocity field is obtained from LES of the flow around an infinite square cylinder at a Reynolds number of Re = 500. The POD algorithm is examined and the total energy of the flow is found to be well captured by only a small number of eigenmodes. From the energy spectrum, it is learned that each eigenmode represents a particular flow characteristic embedded in the turbulent wake, and eigenmodes with analogous characteristics can be bundled as pairs. Qualitative analysis of the dominant modes provided insight as to the spatial distribution of dominant structures in the turbulent wake. Another outcome of this chapter is to develop physical interpretations of the energetic structures by examining the temporal coefficients and tracking their life-cycle. It was observed that the paired temporal coefficients are approximately sinusoidal with similar order of magnitude and frequency and a phase shift. Lastly, it was observed that the turbulent flow field can be approximated by a linear combination of the mean flow and a finite number of spatial modes. The second manuscript analyses the influence of a solid wall on the wake dynamics of an infinite square cylinder. Different cases have been studied by changing the distance between the cylinder and the bottom wall. From the simulation results, it is learned that the value of drag and lift coefficients can be significantly affected by a nearby solid wall. From the energy decay spectrum it is observed that the energy decay rate varies for different gap ratios and accordingly a physical explanation is developed. Visualization of coherent structures for each case shows that for larger gaps, although the structures are distorted and inclined away from the wall, the travelling wave characteristic persists. Lastly, it is observed that as the gap ratio gets smaller, energetic structures originated by the wall begin to appear in the lower index modes. The last manuscript presents a numerical study of the structures in turbulent Couette flow with roughness on one wall, which as mentioned earlier, is the targeting study case of this research. Flow over both roughened and smooth surfaces was examined in a single study. Comparison was made with experiments and other numerical studies to verify the LES results. The mean velocity distribution across the channel shows that the rib roughness on the bottom wall has a strong effect on the velocity profile on the opposite wall. The energetic coherent dynamics of turbulent flow were investigated by the use of POD. The energy decay spectrum was analysed and the influence of a roughened wall and each roughness element on formation of those structures was investigated. Coherent POD modes on a spanwise sampling plane are detected. A secondary swirling motion is visualized, for the first two modes and counter-rotating cells are observed in the lower region of the channel above the rough wall for the higher modes. At the end, a quantitative analysis of the POD temporal coefficients was performed, which characterize the life-cycle of each coherent dynamic. A motivating outcome of this analysis is to decompose the time trace curves into quasi-periodic and fluctuations curves and to detect a linkage between these life cycles and physical meaning and location of each energetic pattern. At the end, in a closuring chapter, concluding remarks of this research work are presented in more detail and some potential extensions have been proposed for future researchers.

The flow characteristics in compound channels with and without vegetation on the floodplain were investigated experimentally and numerically in this thesis. Detailed measurements of velocity and boundary shear stress, using a Pitot tube and an acoustic Doppler velocimeter together with a Preston tube, were undertaken to understand the flow characteristics in compound channels. Eight no-rod cases, two emergent-rod cases and two submerged-rod cases were tested. Unsteady large eddies that occur in the shear layer were explored numerically with Large Eddy Simulation (LES) to identify its generation and its effects on the flow behaviors. Mean flow parameters were predicted using the quasi-2D model by considering the shear effect. Usirgg the data of depth-averaged velocity and boundary shear stress, the contributions of shear-generated turbulence and bed-generated turbulence to the Reynolds shear stress were identified, the apparent shear stress was calculated using the modified method of Shiono and Knight (1991) and the depth-averaged secondary current force was then obtained. Large eddies were important to the lateral momentum exchange in shallow non-vegetated compound channels and even in deep vegetated compound channels. In the compound channel with one-line rods at the floodplain edge, the secondary current forces were of opposite signs in the main channel and on the floodplain and the bed shear stress was smaller than the standard two-dimensional value of yHSo due to the vegetation effect, where y,H,So are the specific weight of water, water depth and bed slope respectively. In vegetated compound channels, the velocity patterns were different to those and the discharges were smaller than those in non-vegetated compound channels under similar relative water depth conditions. The anisotropy of turbulence was the main contribution to the generation of secondary currents in non-vegetated and vegetated compound channels, but the Reynolds stress term was more important in the vegetated compound channels. Results of cross spectra showed the mechanisms of the turbulent shear generation near the main channel-floodplain junction are due to large eddies in the non-vegetated compound channel and owing to wakes in the vegetated compound channel. LES results indicated that large eddies caused significant spatial and temporal fluctuations of velocity and water level in the compound channel and the instantaneousv alues of these flow parameters were significantly higher than the mean values. In vegetated compound channels, the flow moved from the main channel to the floodplain and from the floodplain to the main channel alternately. The characteristic frequencies of the large eddy were less than 1Hz which was consistent with the experimental data. The capability of the quasi-2D model to predict the 2D mean flow parameters in compound channels were assessed under different flow conditions and also improved by using the mean wall velocity as the boundary condition and appropriate values of the lateral gradient of the secondary current force. In the vegetated compound channels, new approaches were proposed to treat the drag force in the cases of oneline emergent rods at the floodplain edge and submerged rods on the floodplain.

In the last 10-15 years, large-eddy simulation (LES) has become well established for non-reacting flows, and several successful models have been developed for the transfer of momentum and kinetic energy to the subfilter-scales (SFS). However, for reacting flows, LES is still undergoing significant development. In particular, for many premixed combustion applications, the chemical reactions are confined to propagating surfaces that are significantly thinner than the computational grids used in practical LES. In these situations, the chemical kinetics and its interaction with the turbulence are not resolved and must be entirely modelled. There is, therefore, a need for accurate and robust physical modelling of combustion at the subfilter-scales. In this thesis, modelled transport equations for progress variable and flame surface density (FSD) were implemented and coupled to the Favre-filtered Navier-Stokes equations for a compressible reactive thermally perfect mixture. In order to reduce the computational costs and increase the resolution of simulating combusting flows, a parallel adaptive mesh (AMR) refinement finite-volume algorithm was extended and used for the prediction of turbulent premixed flames. The proposed LES methodology was applied to the numerical solution of freely propagating flames in decaying isotropic turbulent flow and Bunsen-type flames. Results for both stoichiometric and lean flames are presented. Comparisons are made between turbulent flame structure predictions for methane, propane, hydrogen fuels, and other available numerical results and experimental data. Details of subfilter-scale modelling, numerical solution scheme, computational results, and capabilities of the methodology for predicting premixed combustion processes are included in the discussions. The current study represents the first application of a full transport equation model for the FSD to LES of a laboratory-scale turbulent premixed flame. The comparisons of the LES results of this thesis to the experimental data provide strong support for the validity of the modelled transport equation for the FSD. While the LES predictions of turbulent burning rate are seemingly correct for flames lying within the wrinkled and corrugated flamelet regimes and for lower turbulence intensities, the findings cast doubt on the validity of the flamelet approximation for flames within the thin reaction zones regime.

Turbulente Austauschprozesse in der atmosphärischen Grenzschicht spielen eine Schlüsselrolle beim vertikalen Impuls-, Energie- und Stofftransport in der Erdatmosphäre. In meso- und globalskaligen Atmosphärenmodellen sind turbulente Austauschprozesse jedoch subskalig und müssen unter Verwendung geeigneter Schliessungsansätze parametrisiert werden. Hierbei spielt die Spezifikation der charakteristischen Turbulenzlängenskala in Abhängigkeit vom Stabilitätszustand der Atmosphäre eine entscheidende Rolle. Gegenwärtig verwendete Ansätze, die auf der Verwendung der turbulenten Mischungslänge für neutrale Schichtung sowie dimensionsloser Stabilitätsfunktionen basieren, zeigen vor allem Defizite im oberen Bereich der konvektiven Grenzschicht sowie in der Entrainmentzone, wo starke vertikale Gradienten auftreten. In der vorliegenden Arbeit wurden hochaufgelöste dreidimensionale Grobstruktursimulationen der trockenen und feuchten Grenzschicht für ein weites Spektrum von Labilitätsbedingungen durchgeführt. Erste und zweite Momente atmosphärischer Strömungsvariablen wurden aus den simulierten hydro- und thermodynamischen Feldern berechnet und diskutiert. Die Spektraleigenschaften turbulenter Fluktuationen der Strömungsvariablen, das raumzeitliche Verhalten kohärenter Strukturen sowie charakteristische Turbulenzlängenskalen wurden abgeleitet. Eine Verifizierung der charakteristischen Turbulenzlängenskalen erfolgte durch Vergleich mit Ergebnissen früherer numerischer Simulationen, mit Turbulenzmessungen in der atmosphärischen Grenzschicht sowie mit Laborexperimenten. Mit Hilfe der nichtlinearen Datenmodellierung wurden leicht verwendbare Approximationen der charakteristischen Turbulenzlängenskalen abgeleitet und deren statistische Signifikanz diskutiert. Unter Verwendung dieser Approximationen wurde ein existierendes Parametrisierungsmodell revidiert und mit Hilfe von Grobstruktursimulationen verifiziert. Desweiteren wurde der Einfluß der turbulenten Mischungslänge auf die Prognose mesokaliger Felder untersucht. Hierzu wurde mit dem Lokal-Modell des Deutschen Wetterdienstes eine entsprechende Sensitivitätsstudie durchgeführt. Anhand von Satellitendaten und Analysedaten aus der 4D-Datenassimilation wurden die Simulationsergebnisse verifiziert.

The Large Eddy Simulation approach is employed to predict the flow physics and heat transfer characteristics of a film-cooling problem that is formed from the interaction of a coolant jet with a hot mainstream flow. The film-cooling technique is used to protect turbine blades from thermal failure, allowing the gas inlet temperature to be increased beyond the failure temperature of the turbine blade material in order to enhance the efficiency of gas turbine engines. A coolant fluid is injected into the hot mainstream through several rows of injection holes placed on the surface of a gas turbine blade in order to form a protective coolant film layer on the blade surface. However, due to the complex, unsteady and three-dimensional interactions between the coolant and the hot gases, it is difficult to achieve the desired cooling performance. Understanding of this complex flow and heat transfer process will be helpful in designing more efficiently cooled rotor blades. A comprehensive numerical investigation of a rotating film-cooling performance under different conditions is conducted in this thesis, including film-cooling on a flat surface and film-cooling on a rotating gas turbine blade. The flow-governing equations are discretised based on the finite-volumes method and then solved iteratively using the well-known SIMPLE and PISO algorithms. An in-house FORTRAN code has been developed to investigate the flat plate film-cooling configuration, while the gas turbine blade geometry has been simulated using the STAR-CCM+ CFD commercial code. The first goal of the present thesis is to investigate the physics of the flow and heat transfer, which occurs during film-cooling from a standard film hole configuration. Film-cooling performance is analysed by looking at the distribution of flow and thermal fields downstream of the film holes. The predicted mean velocity profiles and spanwise-averaged film-cooling effectiveness are compared with experimental data in order to validate the reliability of the LES technique. Comparison of adiabatic film-cooling effectiveness with experiments shows excellent agreement for the local and spanwise-averaged film-cooling effectiveness, confirming the correct prediction of the film-cooling behaviour. The film coverage and film-cooling effectiveness distributions are presented along with discussions of the influence of blowing ratio and rotation number. Overall, it was found that both rotation number and blowing ratio play significant roles in determining the film-cooling effectiveness distributions. The second goal is to investigate the impact of innovative anti-vortex holes on the film-cooling performance. The anti-vortex hole design counteracts the detrimental kidney vorticity associated with the main hole, allowing coolant to remain attached to the blade surface. Thus, the new design significantly improves the film-cooling performance compared to the standard hole arrangement, particularly at high blowing ratios. The anti-vortex hole technique is unique in that it requires only readily machinable round holes, unlike shaped film-cooling holes and other advanced concepts. The effects of blowing ratio and the positions of the anti-vortex side holes on the physics of the hot mainstream-coolant interaction in a film-cooled turbine blade are also investigated. The results also indicate that the side holes of the anti-vortex design promote the interaction between the vortical structures; therefore, the film coverage contours reveal an improvement in the lateral spreading of the coolant jet.