Three-dimensional numerical simulation of flow around a 1:5 rectangular cylinder

This paper deals with the three-dimensional simulation of the unsteady flow around a stationary 1:5 rectangular cylinder at zero-degree angle of attack, low Mach number and relatively high Reynolds number. The computations have been performed using the DLR-Tau code, a non-commercial finite-volume code developed at the German Aerospace Center, and results obtained with a hybrid mesh are validated against the available experimental data, showing good agreement. Detached-Eddy Simulation (DES), that is a hybrid method combining Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) and Raynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) approaches, has been adopted as strategy of turbulence modelling. The comparison with respect to unsteady RANS results, although obtained with advanced turbulence models, show the improvement that can be expected with the DES technique for this type of massively separated bluff-body flows. The paper also clarifies the key role played in LES, and therefore also in DES simulations, by the artificial dissipation characterizing the numerical scheme used to discretize the filtered Navier-Stokes equations. Finally, the discussed results highlight the effects of the spanwise extension of the computational domain. A distance between the periodic boundary planes equal to the width of the cylinder is not enough to allow the natural loss of correlation of pressures and the free development of large-scale turbulent structures. In contrast, a span equal to the double of the cylinder width fulfill much better this requirement.