Proceedings of ASME FEDSM’03

th
4 ASME_JSME Joint Fluids Engineering Conference
Honolulu, Hawaii, USA, July 6-10, 2003
Proceedings of FEDSM 2003
2003 ASME Fluids Engineering Division Summer Meeting
FEDSM2003-45474
Copyright@2003 by ASME

Comparison of CFD Simulation to the Experiments

for Forward Step Flows
Shoichiro Nakamura†, Hiroyuki Onuma††, Peter G. Carswell†††
†
Mechanical Engineering Department, 206 W 18th Avenue, The Ohio State University,
†††
Ohio Supercomputer Center,
Columbus, OH 43210, USA (email: nakamura.2@osu.edu)
††
Ibaraki University, Mechanical Engineering Department, Hitachi, Ibaraki, Japan

In the past, time-dependent solutions of 3-dimensional

Abstract
Three dimensional DNS simulation on the fluid flow over a
forward step configuration are compared with the
experiments reported by Shakouchi, Ando, and Ito. This is
a part of authors’attempts to evaluate the validity of three
dimensional unsteady flow simulation by comparison to
experiments. Summary of the comparison is as follows: (1)
vortex shedding in the flow separation over the top of the
step near the corner is observed, (2) frequency of vortex
shedding and distance between two consecutive vortices do
not agree with the experiment, (3) however, while steady
periodic shedding of vortices from the top corner of the step
is reported for the experimental results, the computational
results show unsteady behavior of the flow over the top
corner, which results in unsteady shedding of vortices. This
unsteadiness in the computational simulation is due to
unsteady motion of fluid upstream from the step where
adverse pressure increase occurs.
Navier-Stokes equations also have been presented by many
authors, which provided significant amounts of information.
However, no one could answer well the question on how
accurate these computed results are. Evidently the only way
to answer the question is to compare the computed results to
experiments for a large number of benchmark problems.
The present work is an attempt to answer this question using
the experimental work presented by Shakouchi, et. al [1] for
the flow over a forward-faced step geometry. Although this
work is only one instance of comparison by which no
confirmation or disconfirmation can be made, we report the
results any way to initiate dialog between those who do
experiments and those who do computations.

1. Introduction

Verification of the CFD results is one of the most urgent

tasks in application of the computational methods for fluid
flow simulations. Unfortunately, even though computational
fluid dynamic codes are relatively easily available, there is Figure 1 Geometry of the forward step and the flow
no organized information on when and how the channel
computational results are expected to be correct or reliable.
Although there are many publications on the comparison 2. Summary of the experiments
between CFD results and experiments, a majority of them
are based on the time-averaged Navier-Stokes equations, for We describe first the flow channel used in the experiments
which understanding the nature of unsteady flow is not easy and second summarize the results reported in reference [1]
even when agreement between time averaged experimental with permission of the authors.
results and computations are good.

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 The step with a sharp edge of leading angle of 27 degrees
and the lower surface of 6 times length of step height H of
20 mm was mounted at the position of 40mm from the side
wall and 710 mm from the entrance of the flow passage.
The Reynolds number based on H was 900 and 5000 were
both measured, but details of vortex shddeng was reported
only for the case of Re=900. The main results of
experiments by Shakouchi and Ando are copied in Figure 2.
3. Computational methods
Computation was done using a three DSN code to solve 3D
incompressible Navier-Stokes code developed by Nakamura.
Basic algorithms of the code and previous applications are
reported in references [2-5].
The Reynolds number of the flow based on the step height is
900. In the computer simulation a total of 245x41x94=0.94
million grid points are used in the DNS simulation.
Figure 2 Experimental record of vortices over the top of
the step
4. Results of computations
Regarding the flow separation and vortex shedding from the
top corner of the step, we observed the patterns similar to
Figure 2. However, by and large, the flow over the edge is
found to be unsteady with periodic wash out of the vortices.
The unsteady motion over the top of the step is primarily
caused in the flow over the lower plate before the step. An
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adverse pressure increase toward the step is obviously
causing unsteady behavior.
The flow behavior is best observed in a motion picture of the
flow velocity vector distributions as planned to be shown at
the conference. Showing the motion picture in the internet
website is desirable if possible but not practical for the
present case because a very large amount of data transfer
through internet would be required.
Therefore, in the rest of this paper, we try to explain the
nature of the unsteady flow around the step with plots of the
velocity fields.
Figure 3 through 15 are velocity vector plots along the
center plane from the time step number 25000 at every 100
time step increment. Figures 16 through 21 are from times
steps 29000 through 29500 at every 100 step increment
These figures show vortex formation in the separated region
after the top corner. The number of vortices in the
computational results in the region is smaller like one or at
most two. Vortices in the experiments are attached to the top
surface of the step, those from the computations are also
attached.
The flow over the corner is not steady but has an intermittent
wash out from below. This phenomenon is well observed
in a motion picture, but caused by unsteadiness of the flows
over the lower plate before the step. The unsteadiness of the
flow over the lower plate is obvious from all the plots.
It is not clear if such unsteadiness was observed in the
experiment. The periodic wash out has a much longer
period than the vortex shedding at the top corner, it is
possible that the periodic vortex shedding could be observed
between two consecutive wash out.
Figure 3 Velocity along the center plane at n=25000
 Figure 4 Velocity along the center plane at n=25100 Figure 7 Velocity along the center plane at n=25400

Figure 5 Velocity along the center plane at n=25200 Figure 8 Velocity along the center plane at n=25500

Figure 6 Velocity along the center plane at n=25300 Figure 9 Velocity along the center plane at n=25600

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 Figure 10 Velocity along the center plane at n=25700 Figure 13 Velocity along the center plane at n=26000

Figure 11 Velocity along the center plane at n=25800 Figure 14 Velocity along the center plane at n=26100

Figure 12 Velocity along the center plane at n=25900 Figure 15 Velocity along the center plane at n=26200

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 Figure 16 Velocity along the center plane at n=29000 Figure 19 Velocity along the center plane at n=29300

Figure 17 Velocity along the center plane at n=29100 Figure 20 Velocity along the center plane at n=29400

Figure 18 Velocity along the center plane at n=29200 Figure 21 Velocity along the center plane at n=29500

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 5. Discussions
While three vortices in the separation bubble past the top
corner are observed in Figure 3, the computation has
captured only one or two, but often no vortices. This could
be attributed to computational numerical viscosity and
insufficient grid points in the separation region.
Whether the flow before the step is unsteady or perfectly
steady is a crucial question although none is addressed by
the authors of Reference 1. It is hard to believe that the flow
is unsteady only when simulated by the computational
simulation.
Computations for another Reynolds number of Re=3600 has
been completed although we are not reporting about it here
in details. The flow behavior is significantly different from
that of Re=900.
The result of the comparison for Re=900 is not conclusive if
lack of mesh and numerical viscosity are responsible for the
discrepancies.
Computational simulation of unsteady flow takes about three
months for one case even with the mount of grid points used
in the present study. Repeating the computations to
investigate the effects of conceivable parameters that may
affect is not easy therefore. In three dimensional
computation, we are always under the pressure to increase
the mesh points. In three dimensional flow simulations,
however, doubling the number of grid points in each
direction requires 8 times for the entire domain. This would
require approximately 8 million points for this geometry, but
not possible immediately unless a large amount of funding
resource is available. Nonetheless, if the computer speed
doubles every 1.5 years, and the core memory capacity
increases at the same rate, we should be able to achieve this
at the current cost within five years from now. With 8
million points, however, the flow will be still unsteady for
sure.
To answer the question regarding the cause of discrepancies,
closer and more organized collaboration between the
computational workers and experimental works are desirable.
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6. Concluding Remarks
It is the author’s impression that, despite the disagreement
between the computation and experiments, the
computational results are in the right direction. The quality
of the computation will increase eventually as the speed of
computers will increase in the future. We only hope to be
able to compare the computational results more often to
experimental results.
Acknowledgements:
The authors are thankful to Shakouchi and his coworkers
for allowing us to make comparison of our results to theirs.
[1] Shakouchi T, Ando T, and Ito K, “Mean and vortex
shedding flow characteristics over a forward-facing step,”
ASME FEDS 2001-18102, New Orleans, 2001
[2] S Nakamura. Option and selection of numerical
algorithms for unsteady incompressible Navier-Stokes
equations. FEDSM97-3666, Proceedings of ASME Fluids
Engineering Division Summer Meeting, June 22-26, 1997,
Vancouver, CANADA
[3] S Nakamura, RS Brodkey. Direct and Large Eddy
Simulation of the Three-Dimensional Unsteady Flows in the
Counter-Jet Mixing Vessel, ASME Fluids Engineering
Summer Conference, June 11-15, 2000, Boston, MA,
FEDSM2000-11007
[4] S Nakamura, W Ding, WA Smith, LAR Golding.
Numerical flow simulation for the IVAS secondary impeller.
ASAIO Journal, Vol. 45/1, Jan-Feb, 1999.
[5] S Nakamura, RS Brodkey. Computational study of the
fluid flow in a sylindrical cavity with an impeller rotor at am
eccentric location. 3rd ASME/JSME Joint Fluids
Engineering Conference, July 18-23, 1999, San Francisco,
California