Wall Modeled Large Eddy Simulation of Flow Over a Wall-Mounted Hump

Large Eddy Simulations (LES) of wall-bounded flows at high Reynolds numbers demand an extremely fine mesh resolution in the wall proximal inner layer. Accurate modeling of near wall turbulence is therefore crucial in reducing the computational cost of LES at practical Reynolds numbers. One approach is the implementation of a two-layer model that solves for a reduced one-dimensional boundary layer equation in the inner wall layer. A wall modeled LES thus allows for a coarser grid resolution than a wall resolved LES. This work evaluated the performance of a wall modeled LES against a wall resolved LES as well as experimental data for the flow over a wall mounted hump at Reynolds number 9.36×10⁵. Results from the wall modeled LES were in good agreement with both wall resolved LES and experimental data in parameters such as surface pressure coefficient, skin friction, mean velocity profiles, Reynolds stresses and flow reattachment. It was observed that the wall modeled LES required only a fifth of the computational resources required for the wall resolved LES.