Evaluation of turbulence models in the PARC code for transonic diffuser flows

Flows through a transonic diffuser were investigated with the PARC code using five turbulence models to determine the effects of turbulence model selection on flow prediction. Three of the turbulence models were algebraic models: Thomas (the standard algebraic turbulence model in PARC), Baldwin-Lomax, and Modified Mixing Length-Thomas (MMLT). The other two models were the low Reynolds number k-epsilon models of Chien and Speziale. Three diffuser flows, referred to as the no-shock, weak-shock, and strong-shock cases, were calculated with each model to conduct the evaluation. Pressure distributions, velocity profiles, locations of shocks, and maximum Mach numbers in the duct were the flow quantities compared. Overall, the Chien k-epsilon model was the most accurate of the five models when considering results obtained for all three cases. However, the MMLT model provided solutions as accurate as the Chien model for the no-shock and the weak-shock cases, at a substantially lower computational cost (measured in CPU time required to obtain converged solutions). The strong shock flow, which included a region of shock-induced flow separation, was only predicted well by the two k-epsilon models.