NUMERICAL-SIMULATION OF A LOW-REYNOLDS-NUMBER TURBULENT WAKE BEHIND AFLAT-PLATE

A numerical simulation of a plane turbulent wake at a very low Reynold s number has been performed using finite volume methods. The wake was produced by allowing two turbulent boundary layers, simulated separate ly in advance, to interact downstream of the trailing edge of a thin f lat plate. A number of innovative numerical techniques were required i n the simulation, such as the provision of fully turbulent time-depend ent inflow data from a separate simulation, advective outflow boundary conditions and the approximate representation of an internal solid su rface by a method which is computationally efficient. The resulting si mulation successfully reproduced many of the statistical properties of the turbulent near-wake flow at low Reynolds number.