Numerical Dissipation Based Error Estimators and Grid Adaptation for Large Eddy Simulation

Grid adaptation for implicit Large Eddy Simulation (LES) is a non-trivial challenge due to the inherent coupling of the modeling and numerical errors. An attempt to address the challenge first requires a comprehensive assessment and then the development of error estimators to highlight regions that require refinement. Following the work of Schranner et al., a novel approach to estimate the numerical dissipation of the turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) equations is proposed. The presented approach allows the computation of the local numerical dissipation for arbitrary curvilinear grids through a post-processing procedure. This method, as well as empirical and kinetic-energy-based approaches, are employed to estimate the inherent numerical TKE. We incorporate the numerical TKE to evaluate an effective eddy viscosity, an effective Kolmogorov length scale, and an effective TKE to build a family of Index Quality (IQ) based error estimators. The proposed IQ based estimators are then assessed and utilized to show their effectiveness through an application of grid adaptation for the periodic hill test case and transitional flow over the SD 7003 airfoil. Numerical results are validated through a comparison against reference LES and experimental data. Flow over the adapted grids appear better abled to capture pertinent flow features and integrated functions, such as the lift and drag coefficients.