Comparison of Turbulence Models

Applied on Two-dimensional Backward-Facing-Step Flow

Eldwin Djajadiwinata1
Student ID: 434107763
1

Graduate Studies, Mechanical Engineering Department, College of Engineering,

King Saud University, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
ABSTRACT
This report is part of Advanced CFD course, PhD program, at M.E. Dept., College of

Engineering, King Saud University. It focuses on comparing two turbulence models applied
on two-dimensional backward-facing-step flow for educational purpose, i.e., to learn how to
perform the steps on solving flow problem through CFD commercial package. The
turbulence models compared are Spalart-Allmaras model and

model. The

geometry and the grid generated are explained. The results are compared with other wellknown simulation results and experimental results. Comparison between both turbulence
models is discussed. Finally, conclusion is presented in the end.

1. METHODOLOGY
Two turbulence models, i.e., Spalart-Allmaras Turbulence Model and

are compared by applying them on two-dimensional backward facing step flow. This study is
mainly referring to the NASA Turbulence Modeling Resource website [1] as its guide.
Results of the present study will be compared to the experimental data of the work of
Driver and Seegmiller [2] which is also provided in the aforementioned NASA website [1].
The scheme of experimental set-up done by Driver and Seegmiller [2] can be seen in
Figure 1. It should be mentioned that the present work only considers angle of the upper wall,
, (in Figure 1) to be equal zero due to time limitation. That is, flat-horizontal upper wall.

Figure 1: Scheme of the experimental set-up and parameters

conducted by Driver and Seegmiller [2]

The flow is an incompressible turbulent flow over a backward-facing step in a

channel. The mean-velocity and turbulence parameters of the flow were measured using a
laser Doppler velocimeter (LDV). Eddy viscosities, production, convection, turbulent
diffusion, and dissipation (balance of kinetic energy equation) terms are extracted from the
measured data. A more detail explanation can be read in ERCOFTAC "Classic Collection"
Database website [3].
The grid/mesh was generated using ANSYS version 14. The ANSYS DesignModeler
was used to generate the geometry and, afterwards, it is exported to ANSYS Meshing to
generate the mesh.
There were four meshes created with each of them having different number of cells,
i.e., 14750, 59000, 132750, and 531000. These meshes were used for grid independent study.
Basically, the finer mesh was obtained by increasing the number of points on every boundary
uniformly by a certain factor. For example, the 59000-mesh was obtained by increasing the
number of points on the boundary by a factor of two on, both, x and y directions. Thus,
2

. Quadrilateral-shape cells were used throughout the mesh as can

be seen in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Typical quadrilateral-shape cells used on the mesh

The dimension of the geometry as well as the boundary conditions was exactly
following those in NASA website [1] except at the inlet and outlet (Figure 3). In the present
simulation, the inlet and outlet boundary conditions were velocity inlet and outflow
boundary conditions, respectively, whereas NASA was using pressure boundary conditions.
It is stated in the website that any type of boundary conditions at the inlet and outlet will
work as long as they result in the same boundary layer thickness and local-center Mach
number of around

and 0.128, respectively, at non-dimensional

. Here, H is the step height which value is

-location of

Figure 3: Geometry and boundary condition used in the simulation (source: NASA [1])
The Uref is the reference velocity at the center-channel near x/H=-4, used to
nondimensionalize velocity and turbulent shear stress profiles. The skin friction coefficient
was also calculated with respect to conditions near this location.
The simulation was done in double precision mode. The pressure-velocity coupling
scheme used was SIMPLE. The spatial discretization schemes were least squares cell based
and PRESTO! for the gradient and pressure. PRESTO! scheme was intentionally used based
on the information stated in ANSYS FLUENT 14 users guide (page 1316) as quoted below:
For most cases the standard scheme is acceptable, but some types of models may
benefit from one of the other schemes:
For problems involving large body forces, the body-force-weighted scheme is
recommended.
For flows with high swirl numbers, high-Rayleigh-number natural convection, highspeed rotating flows, flows involving porous media, and flows in strongly curved domains,
use the PRESTO! scheme.

The spatial discretization for the remaining parameters was set to second order
upwind. Example of Fluent GUI for the aforementioned solution methods can be seen in
Figure 4. These settings were used for both, Spalart-Allmaras and

turbulence

models simulation.

Figure 4: Example of Fluent GUI of solution methods menu

The default values were taken for all under-relaxation factors. The globally-scaled residual
was set to reach

throughout the simulations in this study.

2. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

This section is divided into two. The first one focuses on discussing the results of
simulation using Spalart-Allmaras one-equation model (SA) and the other part focuses on
discussing the results when k-omega-SST model is used.
2.1. Spalart-Allmaras One-equation Model
The meshes used in the grid independence study have been explained previously in
the methodology section. The results show that the variables considered approach certain
values as the number of cells increased. This can be seen clearly in Figure 5(a) to Figure 9(a)
(letter (a) only). Thus, it can be concluded that the mesh generated is acceptable.
It is known that the smaller the cell size, the lower the truncation error which, then,
will increase the accuracy of the simulation. Consequently, it is desirable to have small cell
size. Computing time, however, should be considered because the smaller the cell size, i.e.,
higher number of cells, will result in longer computation time. Therefore, as a rule of thumb,
usually one would choose a mesh with larger cell size which simulation result does not differ
significantly than that mesh with smaller cell size.
Based on this, in the present study, mesh with number of cells of 59000 can be chosen
because its simulation results are close to those of mesh with higher number of cells, i.e.,
132750 and 531000 as shown in Figure 5(a) to Figure 9(a) (letter (a) only). In Figure 9(a) it
can be seen that the re-attachment point obtained (i.e., at shear stress equals to zero or,
alternatively, surface skin friction coefficient equals to zero) for these three meshes are close
which is around x/H = 6 with difference between them around 1%. The experimental reattachment point is

whereas that predicted by NASAs simulation via SA

turbulence model is close to

. On Figure 6 it can be seen that maximum difference

between the 59000-cell mesh and the 531000-cell mesh is only less than or equal to 5%
which happens on the left peak of the curve. Of course, if the recourses are sufficient and
better accuracy is highly needed, mesh with higher number of cells is preferable.
Figure 5 to Figure 9 also show comparison between the present simulation results,
NASA simulation results, and experimental results from the work of Driver and Seegmiller
[2]. All of these simulations are using SA turbulence model.

time-averaged u'v' at x/H = -4

5.0
4.5
experiment

y/H [Dimensioenless]

4.0

no. of cells 14750

no. of cells 59000

3.5

no. of cells 132750

3.0

no. of cells 531000

2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
-2.5

-2.0

-1.5

-1.0

-0.5

0.0

avg(u'v')*1000/Uref2 [Dimensionless]

(a)

(b)
Figure 5: Non-dimensional turbulent shear stress along y direction at x/H =-4 for (a) the
present study and (b) NASAs work. All are using SA turbulence model.

time-averaged u'v' at x/H = 1

3.0

experiment
no. of cells 14750
2.0

no. of cells 59000

y/H [Dimensioenless]

no. of cells 132750

no. of cells 531000

1.0

0.0
-15.0

-10.0

-5.0

0.0

5.0

avg(u'v')*1000/Uref2 [Dimensionless]

(a)

(b)
Figure 6: Non-dimensional turbulent shear stress along y direction at (a) x/H=1 for the
present study and (b) at various x/H locations for NASAs work. All are using SA turbulence
model.

velocity profile at x/H = -4

5

experiment

no. of cells 14750

y/H [Dimensioenless]

no. of cells 531000

1
0.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

u/Uref [Dimensionless]

(a)

(b)
Figure 7: Non-dimensional velocity profile along y direction at x/H=-4 for (a) the present
study and (b) NASAs work. All using SA turbulence model.

velocity profile at x/H = 1

3

experiment
no. of cells 14750
no. of cells 59000
2

no. of cells 132750

y/H [Dimensioenless]

no. of cells 531000

0
-0.4

-0.2

0.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

1.2

u/Uref [Dimensionless]

(a)

(b)
Figure 8: Non-dimensional velocity profile along y direction at (a) x/H=1 of the present study
and (b) at various x/H locations of NASAs work. All are using SA turbulence model.
10

Surface Skin Friction Coeff. (Cf) along Bottomwall

0.004

experiment
no. of cells 14750
no. of cells 59000

0.003

no. of cells 132750

no. of cells 531000

Cf [Dimensioenless]

0.002

0.001

0.000

-5

15

25

x/H [Dimensionless]
-0.001

-0.002

(a)

(b)
Figure 9: Non-dimensional velocity profile along the wall for (a) the present study and (b)
NASAs work. All are using SA turbulence model

11

It can be seen clearly that the results from this work are not only qualitatively agree
with the NASAs work but also quantitatively. If the 59000-cell mesh is taken as the base,
then the maximum difference between these two CFD works are 10% which is shown in
Figure 6. The left peak of the present simulation reaches -10 while the NASAs work reaches
-9. However, if we compare with the 531000-cell mesh, the difference reduces to around 5%
only. This proves that the meshes and boundary condition of the present study are acceptable.
2.2.

Two-equation Model
The grid independence study for simulation using k-omega-SST model was not done

as thorough as for that using SA model because the time available is limited. There are only
two meshes tested, i.e., the 59000-cell mesh and the 531000-cell mesh. Therefore, this is
actually not a proper grid independence study but it is only to get the sense of the effect of
changing cell size on the results.
Regarding grid independency, if one observes Figure 10 to Figure 12, it is clear that
the two meshes tested (59000-cell and 531000-cell) for grid independence give close results
except those showed in Figure 11. They are far away to each other. On the other hand, the
results of these two meshes are close to each other in all figures when SA model is used
instead of k-omega-SST model. Thus, it can be concluded that grid independent mesh for a
certain turbulence model cannot be generalized for another model.
The second thing that one can conclude is that parameters/variables to be looked at
during grid independence test must be those which become the main concern of the research.
This means that, a certain parameter/variable might be independent of such mesh size while
other parameters might not. Hence, one needs to have a grid independent mesh for the
parameter of interest.

12

time-averaged u'v' at x/H = 1

3.0

experiment
SA, no. of cells 59000
SA, no. of cells 531000
2.0

SST, no. of cells 59000

y/H [Dimensioenless]

SST, no. of cells 531000

1.0

0.0
-15.0

-10.0

-5.0

0.0

5.0

avg(u'v')*1000/Uref2 [Dimensionless]

(a)

(b)
Figure 10: Non-dimensional turbulent shear stress along y direction at (a) x/H=1 for the
present study and (b) at various x/H locations for NASAs work using SST model.

13

Surface Skin Friction Coeff. (Cf) along Bottomwall

0.004

experiment
SA, no. of cells 59000
SA, no. of cells 531000

0.003

SST, no. of cells 59000

SST, no. of cells 531000

Cf [Dimensioenless]

0.002

0.001

0.000
-5

15

25

x/H [Dimensionless]
-0.001

-0.002

(a)

(b)
Figure 11: Non-dimensional velocity profile along y direction at (a) x/H=1 of the present
study and (b) at various x/H locations of NASAs work using SST model.

14

Surface Skin Friction Coeff. (Cf) along Bottomwall

0.004

experiment
SA, no. of cells 59000
SA, no. of cells 531000

0.003

SST, no. of cells 59000

SST, no. of cells 531000

Cf [Dimensioenless]

0.002

0.001

0.000
-5

15

25

x/H [Dimensionless]
-0.001

-0.002

(a)

(b)
Figure 12: Non-dimensional velocity profile along the wall for (a) the present study and (b)
NASAs work using SST model.

15

The same as the results obtained when using SA model, the results of this work
utilizing k-omega-SST model show a close agreement with the results obtained by NASA
using the same model (k-omega-SST). Moreover, using this model, the simulation results
match closer to the experimental data compared to that when using SA model.
3. CONCLUSION
Comparison study between Spalart-Allmaras and k-omega-SST turbulence model
applied on backward-facing step flow has been conducted. The conclusion can be
summarized as follows:
1. Grid independent mesh for a certain turbulence model cannot be generalized for
another model.
2. In backward-facing step flow, k-omega-SST model can predict the flow better
compared to the Spalart-Allmaras model.
3. The commercial code used in this study (ANSYS FLUENT 14) is able to predict
the flow as good as the prediction of other code tested by NASA.
4. The prediction of CFD on turbulent flow is good enough qualitatively but,
quantitatively, still needs more improvement.

REFERENCES
[1] Nasa Turbulence Modeling Resource: 2d Backward Facing Step, Last accessed Jan. 14,
2015, http://turbmodels.larc.nasa.gov/backstep_val.html
[2] Driver, D. M., and Seegmiller, H. L., Feb 1985, "Features of Reattaching Turbulent Shear
Layer in Divergent Channel Flow," AIAA Journal, 23(2), pp. 163-171.
[3]
E.R.C.O.F.T.A.C,
Last
accessed
http://cfd.mace.manchester.ac.uk/ercoftac/index.html

16

Jan.

14,

2015,