Large Eddy Simulation of the Flow Over a Three-Dimensional Hill

This paper investigates the use of LES for a flow around a three-dimensional axisymmetric hill. Two aspects of this simulation in particular are discussed here, the resolution and the inlet boundary conditions. In contrast to the LES of flows with sharp edge separations which do not require the near-wall dynamics to be fully resolved, the hill flow LES relies on the resolution of the upstream boundary layer in order to provoke the separation at a correct position. Although around 15 ×106 computational cells were used, the resolution of streaky structures in the near-wall region that are important for a LES is not achieved. Two different inlet boundary conditions were used: the steady experimental profile and the time-dependent boundary conditions produced from DNS results of low Reynolds number channel flow. No significant improvement in the results was obtained with the unsteady inlet condition. This indicates that, although the unsteady inlet boundary conditions may be necessary for a successful LES of this flow, they must be followed with the resolution of the boundary layer for a successful LES.