Large Eddy Simulation of the Flow Past a Circular Cylinder at Super-Critical Reynolds Numbers

Abstract Turbulent flow past a circular cylinder at super-critical Reynolds numbers is simulated using large eddy simulation in this study. A novel combination of O- and H-grid structures is used to reduce mesh cells and, in turn, the computational cost. To investigate the influence of sub-grid scale (SGS) models on the accuracy of simulations, four different SGS models are applied to simulate the flow. In this study, the effect of mesh resolution near the wall on the accuracy of results is also evaluated by applying different y+ values at the wall. The results show that due to the complexity of the flow around the cylinder particularly at high Reynolds numbers, using very high resolution mesh near the cylinder wall, can not guarantee the accuracy of results and other parameters such as mesh resolutions at the top and bottom shear layers and the wake shortly behind the cylinder should be considered appropriately.