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Towards a Direct Numerical Simulation of a Simplified Pressurized Thermal Shock

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Abstract

The aim of this research work is to perform high quality direct numerical simulations (DNS) of a simplified single phase pressurized thermal shock (PTS) scenario with and without buoyancy effects. In that context, the objectives of this paper are (i) to present the road towards the DNS of a PTS design without buoyancy effects and (ii) to demonstrate that the code NEK5000 is adequate for true DNS analyses. This DNS of the PTS design will serve as a reference to validate low order CFD approaches. The higher order spectral element code NEK5000 is selected to perform the high quality DNS computations. The capabilities of this code, in order to perform the DNS for PTS like geometries, have been extensively assessed for a well-known turbulent channel flow configuration with Reτ = 180 (turbulent Reynolds number based on the wall friction velocity). Different numerical parameters of NEK5000 have been thoroughly tested and their influence has been studied to obtain high quality turbulence statistics. This assessment of NEK5000 is further extended for the application of highly skewed hexahedral (non-orthogonal) meshes in a turbulent channel flow. The obtained results have shown that NEK5000 is capable of producing high quality DNS solution for a PTS like complex flow configuration for skewed elements (meshes) up to 60 degrees. Finally, this tested numerical framework is adopted to perform the targeted DNS computations of the simplified PTS design.

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Notes

  1. the simulations where the polynomial degree is not equivalent to 9 are explicitly mentioned in the respective case description.

  2. The space resolution in the spectral element method refers to the total number of computational (or nodal) points after the parental elements have been subdivided with the selected polynomial degree.

  3. The superscript ∗ is used to identify the non-dimentionlal quantities.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to D. Rosa, P.M.K Prasad and D. De Santis for their contribution in running various channel flow simulations considered in this article. The work described in this paper is funded by the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs. The N3 computations presented in this paper are performed at Swierk Computing Centre in the framework of the EU and MSHE grant no. POIG.02.03.00-00-013/09.

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  1. Nuclear Research and Consultancy Group (NRG), Petten, The Netherlands

    A. Shams & E. M. J. Komen

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  1. A. Shams
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  2. E. M. J. Komen
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Correspondence to A. Shams.

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Appendix: Performance of N = 5 on an N = 9 designed base mesh

Appendix: Performance of N = 5 on an N = 9 designed base mesh

Table 12 Mean relative difference ||𝜖Ψ(y)||1 of N = 5 in % with respect to N = 9 on an N = 9 based base mesh
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Fig. 16
figure 16

Comparison of NEK5000 DNS results on an N = 9 based base mesh between N = 9 and N = 5 polynomial order

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Shams, A., Komen, E.M.J. Towards a Direct Numerical Simulation of a Simplified Pressurized Thermal Shock. Flow Turbulence Combust 101, 627–651 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10494-018-9902-x

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