An Evaluation of Turbulence Models for the Isothermal Flow in a Gas Turbine Combustion System

ABSTRACT Eddy viscosity models remain the most common form of turbulence modelling for complex industrial calculations but for complex flows it is not clear which of the many models available in the literature is most suitable. In this paper we compare the performance of five k-ϵ model variants (the standard high Reynolds number version, three alternative linear variants and a nonlinear form) for the isothermal flow in a model of a gas turbine combustor. The calculations are compared against detailed experimental data for the velocity and turbulence fields. It is concluded that for this flow there is little improvement to the quality of results in employing alternative k-ϵ formulations, so improved predictions will require more sophisticated turbulence closures.