A turbulence model for the pressure-strain correlation term accounting forcompressibility effects

Compressibility effects on turbulence are examined with special focus on th e intercomponent energy transfer via the pressure-strain term in compressib le turbulence. Experimental studies often show that the growth rate of comp ressible mixing layers is reduced with increasing Mach number. The recent a nalysis of the direct numerical simulation data bases for compressible turb ulence shows that this reduction is due to the suppression of the pressure- strain correlation in the compressible mixing layer. In this paper, the ord er of magnitude analysis in compressible turbulence is performed to derive a turbulence model for the pressure-strain term in which this compressibili ty effect is included. The derived model is used to simulate compressible m ixing layers, showing that the model predicts the reduced growth rate obser ved in experimental studies. (C) 2000 Published by Elsevier Science Inc. Al l rights reserved.