On the implementation of the κ-ε turbulence model in incompressible flow solvers based on a finite element discretisation

A finite element implementation of the standard κ-e turbulence model, including Chien's Low-Reynolds number modification is presented. Special emphasis is laid on the numerical treatment of wall boundary conditions. In particular, logarithmic wall functions are used to derive Neumann boundary conditions for the standard κ-e model. The resulting solutions are superior to those obtained using wall functions implemented as Dirichlet boundary conditions and comparable to simulation results produced by a Low-Reynolds number κ-e model. Two representative benchmark problems (channel flow and backward facing step) are used to compare the performance of different algorithms in 3D and to investigate the influence of the near-wall treatment.