An Extensive Study on LES, RANS and Hybrid RANS/LES Simulation of a Narrow-Gap Open Taylor-Couette Flow

The present paper concerns a numerical benchmark of various turbulence modelings, from RANS to LES, applied to Taylor-Couette-Poiseuille flows in a narrow gap cavity for six different combinations of rotational and axial Reynolds numbers. Two sets of refined Large-Eddy Simulation results, using the WALE and the Dynamic Smagorinsky subgrid scale models available within an in-house code based on high-order compact schemes, hold for reference data. The efficiency of a RANS model, the Elliptic Blending Reynolds Stress Model (EB-RSM) [1], and a hybrid RANS/LES method, the so-called “Equivalent DES” [2], both run with Code Saturne, is then questioned. Thin coherent structures appearing as negative (resp. positive) spiral rolls are obtained by the LES but also the hybrid RANS/LES along the rotor (resp. stator) sides. More quantitatively, the hybrid RANS/LES does not improve the predictions of the EB-RSM for both the mean and turbulent fields, stressing the need for further theoretical development.