An improved wall-distance-free version of the Baldwin-Barth turbulence model

Abstract

This paper presents a modified version of the Baldwin-Barth (BB) turbulence model. This modification accounts for the asymptotic boundary value of the pseudo eddy viscosity as the wall is approached. The BB Model tends to respond strongly to an adverse pressure gradient, in the sense that it always predicts a large decrease in skin friction relative to the measured values. Hence, in the present work, the importance of the modifications for improving the skin friction prediction of flows with adverse pressure gradient is addressed. All of the implemented modifications are free of wall functions and coordinate independent, which renders the model advantageous relative to other wall dependent models. The results are compared with both the original BB and the Spalart-Allmaras (SA) models. The accuracy of these and the present model is assessed against experimental data for transonic flows over NACA-0012 and RAE 2822 airfoils. In general, good agreement with experiments is indicated.