Wall-modeled large-eddy simulation of non-equilibrium turbulent boundary layers

Abstract: We conducted WMLES to examine the performance of a simple and widely used ODE-based equilibrium wall model in a spatially-developing 3D TBL inside a bent square duct (Schwarz and Bradshaw 1994) and 3D separated flows behind a skewed bump (Ching et al. 2018a,b; Ching and Eaton 2019). From the square duct simulation, the mean velocity profiles and crossflow angles in the outer region were predicted with high accuracy for all the considered mesh resolutions. Some disagreement was observed in the crossflow angles in the bend region where the non-equilibrium effect is most significant. Also, the simulation for the wall-mounted skewed bump showed that this simple ODE-based equilibrium wall model along with an adequate grid resolution around the 3D separation point resulted in reasonable predictions of 3D separating and reattaching flows, including mean velocity distributions, separation bubbles, and vortex structures in the bump wake.