Turbulence: Which Model Should I Select for My CFD Analysis?

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Turbulence: Which Model Should I Select for My CFD

Analysis?

“Turbulence is the most important unsolved problem of classical physics.” (Richard Feynman,
American theoretical physicist, Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965)

“I am an old man now, and when I die and go to heaven, there are two matters on which I hope
for enlightenment. One is quantum electrodynamics, and the other is the turbulent motion of
fluids. And about the former, I am rather optimistic.” (Horace Lamb, English applied
mathematician, Advisor: George Gabriel Stokes)

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Turbulence: Which Model Should I Select for My CFD Analysis?

Even a few decades after these great scientists expressed these remarks, turbulence modeling is still
no easy thing.

The idea of using fluid to extract or deliver energy is not recent. In the 17th century, Leonardo Da
Vinci conducted various experiments to visualize fluid flow, talking about vortex flow, vorticity, swirls,
and eddies.

Fluid flow is classified into two main categories—

laminar or turbulence—regarding the driven forces
(inertial, viscous, etc.), and also a transition regime
between them. Notably, being laminar or turbulent is a
property of fluid flow under dynamic conditions, not a
property of being fluid.

Laminar Flow: A fluid flows through a smooth path

with no disruption between adjacent paths. It is quite
compatible to examine laminar flow both numerically
Figure 1: Experimental visualization and experimentally.
conducted by Osborne Reynolds [1]
Turbulent Flow: A fluid flows through a chaotic path
that comprises eddies, swirls, and flow instabilities. It
is uneasy, almost impossible in some cases, to examine turbulent flow both numerically and
experimentally.

Earlier, the determination of the type of fluid flow numerically was hard to realize. Irish scientist
Osborne Reynolds (1883) discovered the dimensionless number that predicts fluid flow based on
static and dynamic properties such as velocity, density, dynamic viscosity, and length:

Re=(inertial force)/(viscous force)=ρVL/μ

Where ρ (kg/m3) is the density of the fluid, V (m/s 2) is the characteristic velocity of the flow, L (m) is
the characteristic length scale of flow, and μ (Pa*s) is the dynamic viscosity of the fluid.

Type Flow type Reynolds Number

  Laminar regime up to Re=2300

Internal
Transition regime 2300<Re<4000

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Turbulence: Which Model Should I Select for My CFD Analysis?

Turbulent regime Re>4000

External Laminar to Turbulence Re>3×105

Table 1: Flow types according to the Reynolds number

If the inertial forces—which resist a change in velocity of an object and cause of the fluid movement
—are dominant, the flow is turbulent. On the contrary, if the viscous forces, defined as the resistance
to flow, are dominant, the flow is laminar. It is common to generate turbulence for a fluid with low
viscosity, though it is rare for fluids with high viscosity. A detailed description of the Reynolds number
can be obtained from the SimWiki: What is the Reynolds number?

Aside from laminar behavior, turbulence encompasses several hurdles, and thus requires rigorous
effort during experimental and numerical examinations. Turbulence is a type of fluid flow which is
unsteady, enormously irregular in space and time, three-dimensional, rotational, dissipative (in terms
of energy), and diffusive (transport phenomenon) at high Reynolds numbers. Due to those
divergences in turbulent flow, extremely small-scale fluctuations emerge in velocity, pressure, and
temperature. Despite the fact that direct implementation of fluctuated values into the Navier-Stokes
equation is possible, called a Direct Numerical Solution (DNS), it requires an extreme amount of
resources in terms of hardware, software, and human effort. Therefore, an appropriate numerical
model should be implemented when modeling turbulent flow.

Figure 2: The velocity fluctuation in turbulent flow [2]

In this case study, the SimScale platform was used to investigate a ducting system and
optimize its performance. Download it for free to learn how.

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Turbulence: Which Model Should I Select for My CFD Analysis?

Download Free Case Study

Turbulence Modeling
Which turbulence model is convenient for your simulation is a troublesome question. To select an
appropriate model to simulate physical incident as accurately as possible:

Scrutinize physical incident to understand the

phenomenon
Research literature in detail to define a suitable
model
If literature is poor, try some models concurrently to
get an accurate prediction
Take care in the validation process of the model that
you would apply

Implementation of the turbulence model into the

numerical scheme is substantial and makes a big
difference to the simulation results. At the first step, a
quick examination must be carried out—which pertains
Figure 3: Laminar (up) and turbulent
to the Reynolds number—to detect the type of fluid
(down) flow simulation results for a
flow. For instance, as you keep on with the laminar
geometry
model (no turbulence) for a fluid flow over a cylinder
which is turbulent in the reality, the effect of the driven
forces, eddies, vorticities and so forth are destructively
negated. The numerical study hereby diverges, as demonstrated in Figure 3.

Although there is a number of miscellaneous turbulence models that investigate the motion of the
fluid, these rely on turbulent viscosity, and no universal turbulence model exists yet. Generally,
turbulence models are classified regarding governing equation and numerical method used to
calculate turbulent viscosity, for which a solution is sought for turbulence. Reynolds-averaged Navier-
Stokes equations (RANS) and large eddy simulation equations (LES) are the common ones that
require a compatible amount of resources during examination against DNS. Beyond that, Unsteady
Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (URANS), in which motion of the solid body or flow separation

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Turbulence: Which Model Should I Select for My CFD Analysis?

causes unsteady flow, has been broadly implemented.

The main purpose of turbulence modeling is to prompt

Figure 4: Ability of methods to solve
according to the scale of eddies within a
model [3]
equations to anticipate the time-averaged velocity,
pressure, and temperature fields, without calculating
the complete turbulent flow pattern as a function of
time as in RANS and LES. It is unnecessary to solve
the Navier-Stokes equations for every value of
fluctuation since most engineering problems do not
require such a comprehensive solution. The
turbulence models can be summarized as follows:
DNS: Direct implementation of fluctuated values into
the Navier-Stokes equation without any turbulence
model.

LES: An average turbulence model between DNS and RANS in which filtered Navier-Stokes
equations are used for large-scale eddies. An appropriate model is preferred to solve small-scale
eddies.

RANS: A mathematical model based on average values of variables for both steady-state and
dynamic flows (unsteady for URANS). The numerical simulation is driven by a turbulence model
which is arbitrarily selected to find out the effect of turbulence fluctuation on the mean fluid flow.

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Turbulence: Which Model Should I Select for My CFD Analysis?

Table 2: Comparison of turbulence methods/models [4]

Commonly Applied Turbulence Models

Requiring a modest amount of hardware,
computational time, and human effort, RANS/URANS
methods, and sub-models are highly applied for
various computational fluid dynamics problems. The
implementation of LES is rare but possible in some
cases which specifically need much more
computational facilities against URANS/RANS. Here Figure 5: The SimScale environment –
are the most prominent turbulence models you can Turbulence models
run in the SimScale environment [3]:

Spalart-Allmaras

One-equation model
No wall functions
Stable with good convergence
Convenient: Aerodynamics flows, transonic flows over airfoils
Limitations: Solving shear flows, separated flow, decaying turbulence

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Turbulence: Which Model Should I Select for My CFD Analysis?

k-epsilon (on SimScale)

Two-equation model (turbulent kinetic energy and dissipation)

Uses wall functions
Good convergence and low memory requirements
Convenient: Compressible/incompressible, external flow interactions with complex geometry
Limitations: Not accurate for no-slip walls, adverse pressure gradients, strong curvature into flow,
and jet flows

k-omega

Two-equation model (turbulent kinetic energy and dissipation)

Omega used as it is easier to solve than epsilon
Uses wall functions
Good convergence and low memory requirements
Convenient: Similar to k-epsilon improved accuracy for internal flows, curvatures, separated flows
and jets
Limitations: Hard to converge and sensitive to initial conditions

k-omega SST (on SimScale)

Two-equation model (turbulent kinetic energy and dissipation)

No wall functions
Combination of k-epsilon (in the outer region of and outside of the boundary layer) and k-omega
(in the inner boundary layer)
Convenient: Separated flows and jets
Limitations: Difficult to converge

LES Smagorinsky & LES Spart Allmaras

Self-similarity theory
Solves small eddies with a sub-grid scale model and large ones based on geometry calculation
Separates velocity field into resolved (large eddies) and sub-grid parts (small eddies)
Convenient: Thermal fatigue, vibration, buoyant flows (ship design)
Limitations: Difficulties in near-wall regions

Here are a few resources that you might find interesting:

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Turbulence: Which Model Should I Select for My CFD Analysis?

Validated turbulence in the SimScale Environment: Turbulent Pipe Flow

Various online public projects that comprise turbulent flow: SimScale Projects

Turbulent flow tutorials: Spoiler Flow, Front Wing, Incompressible Cyclone

References
1. Reynolds, Osborne. “An experimental investigation of the circumstances which determine whether
the motion of water shall be direct or sinuous, and of the law of resistance in parallel channels”.
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. 174 (0), 1883, P. 935–982.

2. Bird, R.B., Stewart, W.E. and Lightfoot, E.N. “Transport Phenomena”, 2ndth edition, John Wiley &
Sons, 2001, ISBN 0-471-41077-2

3. https://www.bakker.org/dartmouth06/engs150/10-rans.pdf

4. https://cfd.mace.manchester.ac.uk/desider/workplan.html

5. https://cecas.clemson.edu/~rm/quote.html

SimScale is the world's first cloud-based simulation platform, enabling you to perform CFD, FEA, or thermal
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Serkan Solmaz

Serkan has an M.Sc. in Thermo-Fluids from Istanbul Technical University (2016). Concurrently worked as an R&D
project engineer at Arcelik A.S., Fluid Dynamics Technologies Department. More information can be found on his
blog: https://sersol.weebly.com

COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICS

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