Large-eddy simulation of a pseudo-shock system in a laval nozzle

Abstract

We present a high fidelity Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) of a pseudo-shock system in the divergent part of a Laval nozzle with rectangular cross section. The parallel side walls are taken into account, all wall boundary layers are well resolved and no wall model is used. For the first time it was possible to perform a wall-resolved LES for the same parameter set of a reference experiment. The results are validated against experimental wall-pressure measurements and schlieren pictures. Detailed insight into the complex 3-D flow phenomena including corner vortices and recirculation zones is presented. Differences between our LES and RANS simulations are discussed.