Numerical study of the wall boundary condition in large-eddy simulation of the flow past a sharp-edged bluff body

Based on the fact that the drag coefficient is relatively insensitive to the Reynolds number in many experiments on the flow past a sharp-edged bluff body (SEBB) at high Reynolds numbers, it is speculated that the effect of the wall viscosity on the aerodynamics of the SEBB can be neglected to some extent. To validate this hypothesis for the large-eddy simulation (LES), the slip-wall boundary condition was applied to the SEBB, and this LES was termed slip-wall LES (SWLES). The flow past a square cylinder was chosen to validate the SWLES. The aerodynamic parameters, such as the drag coefficient and Strouhal number, agreed well with the experimental data and those of the traditional wall-resolved LES (WRLES). The surface pressure distributions and energy spectra were close to those of the WRLES. The Kelvin–Helmholtz instability structures, flow separation, and von Kármán vortex shedding were captured accurately by the SWLES. The computational cost was compared with that of the WRLES. An interpretation of the SWLES was discussed based on flow visualizations. After the validation, the SWLES was applied to the flow past a photovoltaic system. The wind loads of the system were compared with the wind tunnel experimental data at different incident angles. The surface pressure distributions, flow structures, and wake were analyzed. The present study demonstrated that the SWLES has potential applications for the flow around an SEBB with a much lower cost than that of the WRLES.