Application of generalized wall function for complex turbulent flows

This paper describes a generalized wall function for three-dimensional turbulent boundary layer flows. Since the formulation is valid for various pressure gradients including those associated with zero skin friction, it can be applied to wall bounded complex flows with acceleration, deceleration and recirculation. This generalized wall function is extended to the whole surface layer (or inner layer), covering the viscous sublayer, buffer layer and inertial sublayer; therefore, it is a unified wall function. This `unified' feature is particularly useful for computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to deal with flows with complex geometries, because it allows a flexible grid resolution near the wall to provide accurate wall boundary conditions. This paper also describes a systematic procedure for implementing the wall function in a general CFD code. Finally, a few examples of complex turbulent flows are presented to show the performance of the generalized wall function. This article is a modified version of the original article from the Proceedings of the 5th International Symposium on Engineering Turbulence Modelling and Measurements, Mallorca, 16-18 September 2002, which appeared in ‘Engineering Turbulence Modelling Measurements 5‘, Elsevier Science, ISBN 0-08-044114-9, ed W Rodi and N Fueyo.