Wall-modeled large-eddy simulations of shock-turbulent boundary layer interactions with wall heating and cooling

Abstract

Wall-modeled large-eddy simulations (WMLES) of supersonic turbulent boundary layers with and without shock wave interactions and wall heat transfer are performed, and the results are compared against reference experimental and DNS data. The main objective is to evaluate the performance of equilibrium wall models to accurately capture thermal transport, unsteady low-frequency motions, and complex patterns of boundary layer separation. Separated shock/turbulent boundary layer interactions (STBLI) and shock-free turbulent boundary layer cases are simulated with a freestream Mach number of approximately 2.3 and momentum-thickness Reynolds numbers of $2.5\times 10^3$ and $4.1\times 10^3$ over cooled, adiabatic, and heated walls. Results show that WMLES exhibit a qualitative agreement with DNS data in patterns of flow separation induced by strong STBLIs with wall heat transfer, whereby wall heating/cooling enlarges/reduces the extent of separated flow. The quantitative accuracy of heat transfer prediction is significantly affected by the choice of WMLES parameters. In particular, a reduction of the wall-model exchange height in the STBLI region significantly improves the prediction of friction and heat-flux coefficients in the separated flow regions for the cases considered in this study. Wall pressure power spectral densities show an elongation of low frequency motion associated with flow separation for the heated wall compared to the adiabatic wall. The influence of the subgrid-scale (SGS) model parameter and the wall-model turbulent Prandtl number is also assessed for flows with and without shock waves.