Scientific Bulletin of the Workshop on

Politehnica University of Timisoara Vortex Dominated Flows –

Transactions on Mechanics Achievements and Open Problems
Special issue Timisoara, Romania, June 10 - 11, 2005

VERY LARGE EDDY SIMULATION FOR SWIRLING FLOWS WITH APPLICATION IN

HYDRAULIC MACHINERY

Ivana BUNTIĆ, PhD student Thomas HELMRICH, Research assistant

Institute of Fluid Mechanics and Hydraulic Institute of Fluid Mechanics and Hydraulic
Machinery Machinery
University of Stuttgart University of Stuttgart
Albert RUPRECHT, Head of Fluid Mechanics Group *
Institute of Fluid Mechanics and Hydraulic Machinery
University of Stuttgart
*Corresponding author: Pfaffenwaldring 10, D-70550, Stuttgart, Germany
Tel.: (+49) 711 6853256, Fax: (+49) 711 6853255, Email: ruprecht@ihs.uni-stuttgart.de

ABSTRACT ε [m2/s3] dissipation rate

In this paper a new turbulence model for Very Large ν [m2/s] kinematic viscosity
Eddy Simulation is presented. Its main νt [m2/s] turbulent viscosity
characteristic is an adaptive filtering technique ∆V [m2 or m3] size of the local
which can distinguish between numerically resolved element
and unresolved parts of the flow. This unresolved Subscripts and Superscripts
part is then modelled with extended k-ε model of ^ modelled
Chen and Kim. VLES is applied to the simulation of i covariant indices, i = 1,2,3
unsteady vortex flows in a straight diffuser, a draft
tube and a pipe trifurcation which usually cannot be 1. INTRODUCTION
predicted with classical turbulence models. Using
It is well known that one of the fundamental
the new technique, these complex phenomena are
problems of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)
well predicted.
is the prediction of turbulence. Reynolds-averaged
Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations are established as
KEYWORDS
a standard tool for industrial simulations and
Very Large Eddy Simulation, adaptive turbulence
analysis of fluid flows, although it means that the
model, straight diffuser, draft tube, trifurcation
complete turbulence behaviour has to be enclosed
within appropriate turbulence model which takes
NOMENCLATURE
into account all turbulence scales (from the largest
f [-] filter function
eddies to the Kolmogorov scale). Consequently
hmax [m] local grid size
defining a suitable model for prediction of complex,
k [m2/s2] turbulent kinetic energy
especially unsteady, phenomena is very difficult.
L [m] Kolmogorov length scale
The highest accuracy for resolving all turbulence
Pk [-] production term
scales is offered by a Direct Numerical Simulation
u [m/s] local velocity
(DNS). It requires a very fine grid resolution. Hence
Ui [m/s] filtered velocity
carrying out 3D simulations for complex geometries
Ui [m/s] averaged velocity
and flow with high Reynolds number is nowadays
P [Pa] averaged pressure time consuming even for high performance
τij [Pa] Reynolds stresses computers, see Figure 1. DNS is unlikely to be
α [-] model constant applied to flows of practical relevance in the near
∆ [m] resolved length scale future.
∆t [s] time step
 Figure 1. Degree of turbulence modelling and
computational effort for the different approaches
Large Eddy Simulation (LES) starts to be a
mature technique for analyzing complex flows,
although its major limitation is still expensive
computational cost. In the “real” LES all anisotropic
turbulent structures are resolved in the computation
and only the smallest isotropic scales are modelled.
It is schematically shown in Figure 2. The models
used for LES are simple compared to those used for
RANS because they only have to describe the
influence of the isotropic scales on the resolved
anisotropic scales. With increasing Reynolds
number the small anisotropic scales strongly
decrease becoming isotropic and therefore not
resolvable. There are many “LES” of engineering
relevant flows in the literature, although they can be
characterised as unsteady RANS (URANS) due to
the fact that they only resolve unsteady mean flow
not taking into account any turbulence structure.
If there is a gap in the turbulence spectrum
between the unsteady mean flow and the turbulent
flow, ”classical” RANS i.e. URANS models can be
applied, as they are developed for modelling the
whole range of turbulent scales, see Figure 2. It also
means that they are not suitable for prediction and
analysis of many unsteady vortex phenomena.
Contrary, if there is no spectral gap and even one
part of the turbulence can be numerically resolved,
we can use Very Large Eddy Simulation (VLES). It
is very similar to the LES, with the difference that a
smaller part of the turbulence spectrum is resolved
and the influence of a larger part of the spectrum
has to be expressed with the model, see Figure 2.
Nowadays it seems to be a promising compromise
for simulation of industrial flow problems with
reasonable computational time and costs.
Figure 2. Modelling approaches for RANS and LES
In this paper the development of a VLES
turbulence model is presented. It is based on the
extended k-ε Chen and Kim [1]. Applying an
appropriate filtering technique the new turbulence
model distinguishes between resolved and modelled
part of the turbulence spectrum. Because of its
adaptive characteristic it can be applied for the
whole range of turbulence modelling approaches
from the RANS to the DNS.
Here presented applications of the new adaptive
turbulence model are simulation of the flow in a
straight diffuser, a draft tube and a pipe trifurcation.
In all cases unsteady motions are observed and
computationally well predicted.
2. SIMULATION METHOD
2.1. Governing equations
In this work an incompressible fluid with
constant properties is considered. The governing
equations describing this incompressible, viscous
and time dependant flow are the Navier-Stockes
equations. They express the conservation of mass
and momentum. In the RANS approach, these
equations are time or ensemble averaged leading to
the well known RANS equations:
∂U i ∂U i ∂P ∂τ ij
+U j =− + ν∇ 2U i − (1)
∂t ∂x j ∂x i ∂x j
∂U i
=0 (2)
∂x i
In RANS τij expresses the Reynolds stress tensor
which is unknown and has to be modelled. The task
of turbulence modelling is the formulation and
determination of suitable relations for Reynolds
stresses. Details of the new VLES approach are
described in section 3.
2.2. Numerical method
The calculations are performed using the
program FENFLOSS (Finite Element based
Numerical FLOw Simulation System) which is
developed at the Institute of Fluid Mechanics and
Hydraulic Machinery, University of Stuttgart.
It is based on the Finite Element Method. For
spatial domain discretisation 8-node hexahedral
elements are used. Time discretisation involves a
three-level fully implicit finite difference
approximation of 2nd order. For the velocity
components and the turbulence quantities a trilinear
approximation is applied. The pressure is assumed
to be constant within element. For advection
dominated flow a Petrov-Galerkin formulation of
2nd order with skewed upwind orientated weighting
function is used.
For the solution of the momentum and continuity
equations a segregated algorithm is used. It means
that each momentum equation is handled
independently. They are linearised and the linear
equation system is solved with a conjugated
gradient method BICGSTAB2 of van der Vorst [12]
with an incomplete LU decomposition (ILU) for
preconditioning. The pressure is treated with the Figure 3. FENFLOSS flow chart
modified Uzawa pressure correction scheme [14].
The pressure correction is performed in a local 3. MODELLING APPROACH
iteration loop without reassembling the system
3.1. Very Large Eddy Simulation
matrices until the continuity error is reduced to a
given order. Lately several hybrid methods are proposed in
After solving the momentum and continuity the literature:
equations, the turbulence quantities are calculated - Very Large Eddy Simulation (VLES)
and a new turbulence viscosity is gained. The k and - Semi-Deterministic Simulations (SDS)
ε - equations are also linearised and solved with - Coherent Structure Capturing (CSC)
BICGSTAB2 algorithm with ILU preconditioning. - Detached Eddy Simulation (DES)
The whole procedure is carried out in a global - Hybrid RANS/LES
iteration until convergence is obtained. For - Limited Numerical Scales (LNS)
unsteady simulation the global iteration has to be All of them are based on the same idea to represent
performed for each time step. FENFLOSS flow a link between RANS and LES. Generally they all
chart is shown in Figure 3. can be classified as Very Large Eddy Simulations
The code is parallelised and computational and their main aim is to overcome the
domain is decomposed using double overlapping computational costs and capacity problems. These
grids. In that case the linear solver BICGSTAB2 has methods try to keep computational efficiency of
a parallel performance and the data exchange RANS and the potential of LES to resolve large
between the domains is organised on the level of the turbulent structures. Although they can be
matrix-vector multiplication. The preconditioning is performed on coarser grids, the simulations are
then local on each domain. The data exchange uses strongly dependent on the modelling.
MIP (Message Passing Interface) on computers with Above mentioned methods slightly differ in
distributed memory. On the shared memory filtering techniques, applied model and
computers the code applies OpenMP. For more interpretation of the resolved motion, but broadly
details on the numerical procedure and speaking they all have a tendency to solve complex
parallelisation the reader is referred to [5,6]. unsteady turbulent flows at high Reynolds number
implying a principle “solve less – model more”, see
Figure 4 and Table 1. It means that the relevant part
of the flow (unsteadiness) is resolved and the rest is
modelled.

Figure 5. Adjustment for adaptive model

Figure 4. Modelling approach in VLES For distinguishing resolved and modelled

turbulence spectrum, see Figure 6, the adaptive
Table 1. Resolution in DNS, LES and VLES [7] model uses a filtering technique. There are several
Model Resolution of them described in the literature [2, 4, 11], but the
applied technique is similar to Willems [13]. The
Direct numerical All turbulent scales are smallest resolved length scale ∆ used in filter is
simulation (DNS) resolved according to Magnato and Gabi [4] dependant on
the local grid size or the computational time step
Large eddy simulation Grid size and filtering and local velocity.
with near-wall are sufficient to resolve
resolution 80% of the energy

Large eddy simulation Grid size and filtering

with near-wall are sufficient to resolve
modelling 80% of the energy
distant from the wall,
but not in the near-wall
region

Very large eddy Grid size and filtering

simulation (VLES) are not sufficiently fine
to resolve 80% of the
energy
Figure 6. Distinguishing of turbulence spectrum by
3.2. Adaptive turbulence model
VLES
Classical turbulence models, which are usually
applied for solving engineering flow problems, The basis of the adaptive model is the k-ε model
represent the whole turbulent spectrum. They show of Chen and Kim [1]. It is chosen due to its
excessive viscous behaviour and very often damp simplicity and capacity to better handle unsteady
down unsteady motion quite early. Therefore they flows. Its transport equations for k and ε are given
are not completely appropriate for simulation of as
certain flow cases. 
∂k ∂k ∂ ν  ∂k 
VLES is used for resolving at least one part of +U j = ν + t   + Pk − ε (3)
turbulence spectrum and thus getting more precise ∂t ∂x j ∂x j  σ k  ∂x j 
picture of the flow behaviour. Depending on the
type of the flow and grid size applied model should ∂ε ∂ε ∂  νt  ∂ε 
+U j = ν + 
 ∂x +
automatically adjust to one of the modelling ∂t ∂x j ∂x j  σε  j 
approaches schematically shown in Figure 5. (4)
ε ε2 P 
Therefore an adaptive model is developed. Its c1ε Pk − c 2ε + c 3ε  k  ⋅ Pk
advantage is that with increasing computer power it k k
142  k 43
4 4
can be afforded that a larger part of spectrum is additional term

resolved (due to a finer computational grid and time with following coefficients:
step). As a result the accuracy of the calculation σ k = 0.75, σ ε = 1.15, c1ε = 1.15, c 2ε = 1.9 and
improves. c 3ε = 1.15 .
 Additionally they need to be filtered. According is applied. Unsteady RANS with the standard
to the Kolmogorov theory it can be assumed that the k-ε model usually leads to a steady state solution.
dissipation rate is equal for all scaled. This leads to The vortex shedding and its unsteadiness are
ε = εˆ (5) suppressed by the too diffusive turbulence model.
More sophisticated turbulence model i.e. extended
It is not acceptable for turbulent kinetic energy. k-ε of Chen and Kim is less diffusive and therefore
Therefore it need filtering vortex shedding is gained. Further simulation with
VLES method provides slightly improved results. In
  ∆ 
kˆ = k ⋅ 1 − f   . (6) comparison to k-ε model of Chen and Kim, it
  L  proves to be less damping in the downstream flow
As a suitable filter behind trailing edge. The comparison of these two
models is shown in Figure 7.
 0 for ∆ ≥ L
 2/3
f =  ∆ (7)
1−   for L > ∆
  L

is applied where
 u ⋅ ∆t  ∆V for 2D
∆ = α ⋅ max  with hmax = 3 (8)
 hmax  ∆V for 3D
Figure 7. Pressure distribution by vortex shedding
contains model constant α in a range from 1 to 5. behind the trailing edge, comparison of extended
Then the Kolmogorov scale L for the whole k-ε model of Chen and Kim (left) and adaptive
spectrum is given as VLES (right)
k3/ 2
L= . (9) 4. APPLICATIONS
ε
4.1. Swirling flow in diffuser and draft tube
Modelled length scales and turbulent viscosity are
VLES was used for simulation of swirling flow
kˆ 3 / 2 (10)
Lˆ = in straight diffuser and elbow draft tube with two
εˆ piers. In both cases the specific inlet velocity profile
kˆ 2 corresponds to the flow at a runner outlet under part
νˆt = c µ ⋅ (11)
εˆ load conditions. It is well known that under these
with c µ = 0.09. conditions an unsteady vortex rope is formed.
Computational grid for straight diffuser had
The filtering procedure leads to the final equations 250 000 elements. Applied inlet boundary
∂k ∂k ∂  νˆ  ∂k  ˆ
conditions can be found in [10]. For elbow draft
+U j = ν + t   + Pk − ε (12) tube two grids were used (180 000 and 1 million
∂t ∂x j ∂x j  σ k  ∂x j 
elements). Computational grid and the inlet
boundary conditions (part load operational point of
∂ε ∂ε ∂  νˆ  ∂ε 
+U j = ν + t  + 93%) for the draft tube are shown in Figure 8.
∂t ∂x j ∂x j  σ ε  ∂x j 
(13)
ε ε2  Pˆ 
c1ε Pˆk − c2ε + c3ε  k  ⋅ Pˆk
k k  k 
with the production term
) )  ∂U i ∂U j  ∂U i
Pk = ν t  +  . (14)
 ∂x j ∂x i  ∂x j
 
For more details of the model and its Figure 8. Computational grid and inlet boundary
characteristics the reader is referred to [9]. conditions for the elbow draft tube
The vortex shedding behind the trailing edge, Applying an unsteady RANS with the standard
which can be considered as a convenient test case,
k-ε model leads to a steady state solution. It forms a
shows very often difficulties when unsteady RANS
recirculation region in the centre and keeps it amplitudes are higher in the experiment although
steady. On the other hand applying the extended the frequency corresponds quite well. Fourier
k-ε of Chen and Kim small unsteady vortex forms. transformation of the calculated and measured
It is too short due to the damping character of the signal at position 1 is shown in Figure 12.
turbulence model. With VLES and adaptive
turbulence model the damping of the swirl rate is
clearly reduced and vortex rope expends
downstream. Comparison of the Chen and Kim
model and VLES on example of straight diffuser is
shown in Figure 9.

Figure 11. Comparison of the pressure distribution,

Figure 9. Vortex rope in a straight diffuser, Chen &

Kim (left), VLES (right)
In a practice elbow draft tubes are usually
installed. VLES simulation shows clearly formation
of cork-screw type vortex. In Figure 10 the flow for
one time step is shown as well as velocity
distribution in a cross section after the bend.
Disturbed velocity field can be observed. Therefore,
the discharge through the single daft tube channels
differs significantly.
Figure 12. Fourier transformation of the signals at
position 1
4.2. Flow in pipe trifurcation
In this section the flow in a pipe trifurcation of a
water power is presented. The complete water
passage consists of the upper reservoir, channel,
surge tank, penstock, trifurcation and three turbines.
The spherical trifurcation distributes the water from
the penstock into the three pipe branches leading to
the turbines, schematically shown in Figure 13.

Figure 10. Simulation of the vortex rope in elbow

draft tube with VLES
The simulation results are compared with
experiment data. The pressure distributions at two
pints, see Figure 8 are compared and shown in
Figure 11. It can be seen that the fluctuation Figure 13. Water passage with trifurcation
 During the power plant exploitation severe power It is observed in the simulation as well as in the
oscillations were encountered at the outer turbines model test.
(1 and 3). Vortex instability was discovered as a
cause of these fluctuations. The vortex is formed in
the trifurcation sphere, appearing at the top and
extending into one of the outer branches. After a
certain period it changes its behaviour and extends
into opposite outer branch. Then the vortex jumps
back again. This unstable vortex motion is not
periodic and due to its strong swirling flow
produces a very high losses. These losses reduce the
head of the turbine and consequently the power
output. For better understanding and analysing of
this flow phenomenon, a computer simulation was
performed and results were compared with available
model test measurements.
Computational grid had approximately 500 000 Figure 15. Flow inside the trifurcation – vortex
elements and is shown in Figure 14. Simulation was position in the branch 1
performed in parallel on 32 processors.

Figure 16. Flow inside the trifurcation – vortex

Figure 14. Trifurcation – computational grid
Simulation applying unsteady RANS with the
standard k-ε turbulence model leads to a steady
state solution. The obtained vortex structure extends
through both outer branches and is fully stable.
Thus vortex swirl component is severely
underpredicted leading to a poor forecast of the
losses in the outer branches. It clearly shows that
unsteady RANS is not able to predict this flow
phenomenon.
Applying VLES with the new adaptive
turbulence model, this unstable vortex movement is
predicted. In Figure 15 the flow inside branch 1 at a
certain time step is presented. The vortex is
represented by an iso-pressure surface and
instantaneous streamlines. After some time, see
Figure 16, vortex ”jumps” to the opposite branch.
Since the geometry is not completely symmetric,
the vortex stays longer in branch 3 than in branch 1.
position in the branch 3
Due to the strong swirl at the inlet of the branch
in which the vortex is located, the losses inside this
branch are much higher compared to the other two.
Therefore, the discharge through this branch is
reduced. It is obvious that the discharges i.e. losses
through two outer branches vary successively, while
the discharge i.e. losses in the middle branch shows
much smaller oscillations. In the reality turbines are
located at the outlet of each branch. Therefore the
discharge variation is rather small since the flow
rate through the different branches is prescribed by
the turbines. In the simulation, however, a free
outflow boundary condition is applied which leads
to the higher discharge variations. For comparison
with the experiment, loss coefficients for each
branch are calculated and presented in Figure 17.

Figure 17. Loss coefficients for the three branches
Model tests were carried out by ASTRÖ in Graz,
Austria. For more details the reader is referred to
[3]. As shown in Figure 18, the loss coefficients for
each branch were calculated from the pressure and
discharge measurements.
Figure 18. Measured loss coefficients for all three
branches
Comparing the measured loss coefficients with
those gained by simulation, it can be seen that the
maximum values are still underpredicted, although
general flow tendency and quantitative prediction fit
in with measurement data reasonably well. This
underprediction of the loss coefficient is assumed to
be primarily due to the rather coarse grid and
secondly due to a strong anisotropic turbulent
behaviour which cannot be accurately predicted by
the turbulence model based on the eddy viscosity
assumption.
In order to solve the oscillation problem in the
hydro power plant, it was proposed to change the
shape of the trifurcation. To avoid the formation of
the vortex, upper and lower parts of the sphere are
cut off in flat plates. In the meantime this
modification was made, the power oscillations
disappeared and no unsteady vortex was noticed.
5. CONCLUSIONS
An adaptive turbulence model for Very Large
Eddy Simulation is presented. It is based on the
extended k-ε model of Chen and Kim. Introducing a
filtering technique the new turbulence model
distinguishes between numerically resolved and
unresolved part of the flow.
With the help of this new model the vortex
motions in a straight diffuser, a draft tube and a pipe
trifurcation are calculated. Using classical RANS
method and common turbulence models these flow
phenomena cannot be predicted. Applying VLES
with adaptive turbulence model unsteady vortex
motions were obtained due to its less damping
character. In all simulated cases the results agree
reasonably well with measurement data.
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