The effect of turbulent intensity on friction coefficient in boundary-layer transitional flat plate flow

Abstract

In this study, the effect of inlet-turbulence intensity on the friction coefficient for the transitional boundary layer has been investigated computationally. For this purpose, two equation turbulence models of Std. k-epsilon, RNG k-epsilon, Std. k-omega, and SST k-omega have been compared with the Gamma-Theta (GT) transitional model, and it has been found that the Gamma-Theta model is the most consistent model with the experimental values of the ERCOFTAC T3A test case. Then, the effect of inlet-turbulence intensity on the friction coefficient has been computed by using this Gamma-Theta model. The transition from laminar to turbulence is shortened with increasing turbulence intensity by changing it from 1% to 10%. The most suitable inlet-turbulence intensity value with the experimental results of the ERCOFTAC T3A test case is found as Tu = 3.3%.