COMPARISON OF TURBULENCE MODELS FOR ATTACHED BOUNDARY-LAYERS RELEVANTTO AERONAUTICS

With a single numerical method the performance of three classes of tur bulence models is compared for different types of attached boundary la yers, for which direct numerical simulations or experiments are availa ble in the literature. The boundary-layer equations are solved with th e following turbulence models: an algebraic model, two-equation models (k - epsilon and k - omega), and a differential Reynolds-stress model . The test cases are the channel flow, and boundary layers with zero, favourable and adverse streamwise pressure gradient. The differential Reynolds-stress model gives the best overall performance, whereas the performance of the algebraic model and the k - omega model is reasonab ly good. The performance of the k - epsilon model is less good for bou ndary layers with a non-zero streamwise pressure gradient, but it can easily be improved by an additional source term in the epsilon equatio n, which is also applied in the considered differential Reynolds-stres s model.