Non-equilibrium time-relaxation kinetic model for compressible turbulence modeling

TL;DR

This paper introduces the non-equilibrium time-relaxation kinetic model (NTRKM) for compressible turbulence modeling on unresolved grids, connecting mesoscopic kinetic theory with macroscopic turbulence equations and demonstrating improved simulation accuracy.

Contribution

The paper develops the first non-equilibrium kinetic model for compressible turbulence on unresolved grids, integrating a modified BGK model with turbulence kinetic energy evolution.

Findings

NTRKM performs comparably to eddy-viscosity models in turbulence simulation.

NTRKM yields results closer to DNS than traditional Smagorinsky models.

The non-equilibrium gas-kinetic scheme provides robust and accurate solutions.

Abstract

For the first time, the non-equilibrium time-relaxation kinetic model (NTRKM) is proposed for compressible turbulence modeling on unresolved grids. Within the non-equilibrium time-relaxation framework, NTRKM is extended in the form of modified Bhatnagar-Gross-Krook model. Based on the first-order Chapman-Enskog expansion, NTRKM connects with the six-variable macroscopic governing equations. The first five governing equations correspond to the conservative laws in mass, momentum and total energy, while the sixth equation governs the evolution of unresolved turbulence kinetic energy Kutke. The unknowns in NTRKM, including turbulent relaxation time and source term, are determined by essential gradient-type assumption and standard dynamic modeling approach. Current generalized kinetic model on unresolved grids consequently offers a profound mesoscopic understanding for one-equation subgrid-scale turbulence kinetic energy Ksgs model in compressible large eddy simulation. To solve NTRKM accurately and robustly, a non-equilibrium gas-kinetic scheme is developed, which succeeds the well-established gas-kinetic scheme for simulating Navier-Stokes equations. Three-dimensional decaying compressible isotropic turbulence and temporal compressible plane mixing layer on unresolved grids are simulated to evaluate the generalized kinetic model and non-equilibrium gas-kinetic scheme. The performance of key turbulent quantities up to second-order statistics confirms that NTRKM is comparable with the widely-used eddy-viscosity Smagorinsky model (SM) and dynamic Smagorinsky model (DSM). Specifically, compared with the DNS solution in temporal compressible plane mixing layer, the performance of NTRKM is much closer with DSM and better than SM. This study provides a workable approach for compressible turbulence modeling on unresolved grids.