Kelvin-Helmholtz instability

The incorporation of WALE in hybrid RANS-LES DES

formulation
DES original formulation (termed DES97) could be mapped to a Smagorinsky model
form in LES mode. As mentioned in the former paragraphs the Smagorinsky model has
some shortcomings, one of which is the models inherent inability to correctly model
laminar to turbulent transition. With reference to DES this shortcoming contributes to the
problem of RANS to LES transition (RLT).
The main problem lies in the fact that turbulence in the RLT zone is mainly two-
dimensional and dominated by the Kelvin Helmholtz instability.

Kelvin-Helmholtz instability

A proposition had been made (C. Mockett et al. 2015) to introduce a modification of the
grid scale measure based on the vorticity vector and reformulation of Delayed DES
(DDES DES formulation with a DES-limiter shielding to avoid switching from RANS
to LES mode on ambiguous grid stencil) in WALE form, avoiding the Smagorinskys
associated shortcomings while still incorporating a local formulation applicable for
industrial CFD solvers. Another reason for the choosing of WALE is to keep the non-
zonal approach of DDES.

L(DDES) = L(RANS) fd MAX(0, L(RANS)-L(LES)

Where fd is almost zero inside the boundary-layer and blends rapidly to one at its edge
and in shear-layers where we would like L(DDES) to be the same as L(LES).
The end result proves especially beneficial to the RLT problem and a significant
improvement to the standard DDES in handling RLT.