Impact of Turbulence Models on the Air Flow in a Confined Rectangular Space

Abstract

The paper regards the impact of four different turbulence models on the air flow pattern in a confined rectangular space. The following approaches are analyzed. The Baseline (BSL) Reynolds model, the Speziale-Sarkar-Gatzki (SSG) Reynolds model, the Menter's shear-stress transport (SST) model and the basic k-ε model. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) results are compared with the experimental measurements in four different planes. The Reynolds number for the given conditions is equal to 5000. The k-ε model yielded the most accurate results with regard to the experimental data but its reliability decreased near the wall region. With respect to the other models, it was also found that the k-ε approach generated the least circulating flow.