LES of turbulent flows through pipe bends

Large-Eddy Simulations (LES) of separated and swirling flows through pipe b ends are presented. The LES are carried out with a flow solver using a seco nd-order mixed central-upwind scheme based on an AUSM formulation. Turbulen ce statistics were evaluated for quarter bends at Reynolds numbers up to 22 000. The high grid resolution allows a detailed insight into the physical m echanisms of the turbulent bend flow. An oscillation of the Dean vortices a t very four frequency was found, which has not been studied with numerical methods until today. The computational results show a good agreement with e xperimental data.