Detached–eddy simulations of the flow over a cylinder at Re = 3900 using OpenFOAM

In this paper we present Detached–Eddy Simulations (DES) of the flow field past a cylinder at Reynolds number 3900 obtained by means of the open–source code OpenFOAM. A first aim of the work was to implement a complex DES model based on the v2¯–f approach in order to take advantage of its good performance in the near-wall as well as in the LES region. The model was tested successfully against the selected benchmark case using a Dirichlet type wall boundary condition for the ϵ equation. The role of non–linear constitutive relations in unsolved term modelling was also investigated, but only for the standard Spalart–Allmaras DES approach. A second aim of this study was to validate the DES models available in the OpenFOAM official release. Supercomputing facilities are essential for DES computations to be performed within an acceptable wall–clock time, so we also conducted a detailed code scalability assessment on latest-generation supercomputing equipment. These results are also extensively discussed in this paper. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd