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Turbulence intensity
From CFD-Wiki

Denition
The turbulence intensity, also often refered to as turbulence level, is dened as:

Where is the root-mean-square of the turbulent velocity uctuations and (Reynolds averaged). If the turbulent energy, , is known can be computed as:

is the mean velocity

can be computed from the three mean velocity components

and

as:

Estimating the turbulence intensity

When setting boundary conditions for a CFD simulation it is often necessary to estimate the turbulence intensity on the inlets. To do this accurately it is good to have some form of measurements or previous experince to base the estimate on. Here are a few examples of common estimations of the incoming turbulence intensity: 1. High-turbulence case: High-speed ow inside complex geometries like heat-exchangers and

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ow inside rotating machinery (turbines and compressors). Typically the turbulence intensity is between 5% and 20% 2. Medium-turbulence case: Flow in not-so-complex devices like large pipes, ventilation ows etc. or low speed ows (low Reynolds number). Typically the turbulence intensity is between 1% and 5% 3. Low-turbulence case: Flow originating from a uid that stands still, like external ow across cars, submarines and aircrafts. Very high-quality wind-tunnels can also reach really low turbulence levels. Typically the turbulence intensity is very low, well below 1%.

Fully developed pipe ow

For fully developed pipe ow the turbulence intensity at the core can be estimated as:

Where

is the Reynolds number based on the pipe hydraulic diameter

Retrieved from "http://www.cfd-online.com/Wiki/Turbulence_intensity" This page was last modied on 3 January 2012, at 09:14. Content is available under GNU Free Documentation License 1.2.

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