On the performance of RANS turbulence models in predicting static stall over airfoils at high Reynolds numbers
International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow
ISSN: 0961-5539
Article publication date: 19 November 2021
Issue publication date: 28 March 2022
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to conduct, a detailed investigation of various Reynolds averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) models to study their performance in attached and separated flows. The turbulent flow over two airfoils, namely, National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA)-0012 and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) MS(1)-0317 with a static stall setup at a Reynolds number of 6 million, is chosen to investigate these models. The pre-stall and post-stall regions, which are in the range of angles of attack 0°–20°, are simulated.
Design/methodology/approach
RANS turbulence models with the Boussinesq approximation are the most commonly used cost-effective models for engineering flows. Four RANS models are considered to predict the static stall of two airfoils: Spalart–Allmaras (SA), Menter’s k – ω shear stress transport (SST), k – kL and SA-Bas Cakmakcioglu modified (BCM) transition model. All the simulations are performed on an in-house unstructured-grid compressible flow solver.
Findings
All the turbulence models considered predicted the lift and drag coefficients in good agreement with experimental data for both airfoils in the attached pre-stall region. For the NACA-0012 airfoil, all models except the SA-BCM over-predicted the stall angle by 2°, whereas SA-BCM failed to predict stall. For the NASA MS(1)-0317 airfoil, all models predicted the lift and drag coefficients accurately for attached flow. But the first three models showed even further delayed stall, whereas SA-BCM again did not predict stall.
Originality/value
The numerical results at high Re obtained from this work, especially that of the NASA MS(1)-0317, are new to the literature in the knowledge of the authors. This paper highlights the inability of RANS models to predict the stall phenomenon and suggests a need for improvement in modeling flow physics in near- and post-stall flows.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The first author is funded through the Research Scholar Program of Tata Consultancy Services Cycle 16. The second and third authors gratefully acknowledge the fellowship assistance provided by the Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India. The authors would also like to acknowledge the efforts of Ashwani Assam and Nikhil Kalkote, who had a crucial role in the development of the in-house serial solver.
Citation
Nived, M.R., Mukesh, B.S., Athkuri, S.S.C. and Eswaran, V. (2022), "On the performance of RANS turbulence models in predicting static stall over airfoils at high Reynolds numbers", International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, Vol. 32 No. 4, pp. 1299-1323. https://doi.org/10.1108/HFF-08-2021-0519
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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