Comparing Turbulence Models for Swirling Flows

Abstract

The paper considers a turbulent fluid flow in a rotating pipe, known as the Taylor --- Couette --- Poiseuille flow. Linear RANS models are not suitable for simulating this type of problems, since the turbulence in these flows is strongly anisotropic, which means that solving these problems requires models accounting for turbulence anisotropy. Modified linear models featuring corrections for flow rotations, such as the SARC model, make it possible to obtain satisfactory solutions. A new approach to turbulence problems has appeared recently. It allowed a novel two-fluid turbulence model to be created. What makes this model different is that it can describe strongly anisotropic turbulent flows; moreover, it is easy to implement numerically while not being computationally expensive. We compared the results of solving the Taylor --- Couette --- Poiseuille flow problem using the novel two-fluid model and the SARC model. The numerical investigation results obtained from the novel two-fluid model show a better agreement with the experimental data than the results provided by the SARC model