Scribd
Upload
54 views

Direct Numerical Simulation

Direct numerical simulation is a simulation in computational fluid dynamics that numerically solves the Navier-Stokes equations without a turbulence model. It requires resolving all spatial and temporal scales of turbulence from the smallest to largest scales. This makes direct numerical simulation very computationally expensive and it is typically used for fundamental turbulence research rather than industrial applications.

Uploaded by

Muhammad Azeem Ahmad
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
54 views

Direct Numerical Simulation

Direct numerical simulation is a simulation in computational fluid dynamics that numerically solves the Navier-Stokes equations without a turbulence model. It requires resolving all spatial and temporal scales of turbulence from the smallest to largest scales. This makes direct numerical simulation very computationally expensive and it is typically used for fundamental turbulence research rather than industrial applications.

Uploaded by

Muhammad Azeem Ahmad
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 3

Direct numerical simulation

A direct numerical simulation (DNS)[1] is a simulation in computational fluid dynamics in which the
Navier–Stokes equations are numerically solved without any turbulence model. This means that the whole
range of spatial and temporal scales of the turbulence must be resolved. All the spatial scales of the turbulence
must be resolved in the computational mesh, from the smallest dissipative scales (Kolmogorov microscales), up
to the integral scale , associated with the motions containing most of the kinetic energy. The Kolmogorov
scale, , is given by

where is the kinematic viscosity and is the rate of kinetic energy dissipation. On the other hand, the integral
scale depends usually on the spatial scale of the boundary conditions.

To satisfy these resolution requirements, the number of points along a given mesh direction with increments
, must be

so that the integral scale is contained within the computational domain, and also

so that the Kolmogorov scale can be resolved.

Since

where is the root mean square (RMS) of the velocity, the previous relations imply that a three-dimensional
DNS requires a number of mesh points satisfying

where is the turbulent Reynolds number:

Hence, the memory storage requirement in a DNS grows very fast with the Reynolds number. In addition,
given the very large memory necessary, the integration of the solution in time must be done by an explicit
method. This means that in order to be accurate, the integration, for most discretization methods, must be done
with a time step, , small enough such that a fluid particle moves only a fraction of the mesh spacing in
each step. That is,

( is here the Courant number). The total time interval simulated is generally proportional to the turbulence
time scale given by
Combining these relations, and the fact that must be of the order of , the number of time-integration steps
must be proportional to . By other hand, from the definitions for , and given above, it follows
that

and consequently, the number of time steps grows also as a power law of the Reynolds number.

One can estimate that the number of floating-point operations required to complete the simulation is
proportional to the number of mesh points and the number of time steps, and in conclusion, the number of
operations grows as .

Therefore, the computational cost of DNS is very high, even at low Reynolds numbers. For the Reynolds
numbers encountered in most industrial applications, the computational resources required by a DNS would
exceed the capacity of the most powerful computers currently available. However, direct numerical simulation
is a useful tool in fundamental research in turbulence. Using DNS it is possible to perform "numerical
experiments", and extract from them information difficult or impossible to obtain in the laboratory, allowing a
better understanding of the physics of turbulence. Also, direct numerical simulations are useful in the
development of turbulence models for practical applications, such as sub-grid scale models for large eddy
simulation (LES) and models for methods that solve the Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes equations
(RANS). This is done by means of "a priori" tests, in which the input data for the model is taken from a DNS
simulation, or by "a posteriori" tests, in which the results produced by the model are compared with those
obtained by DNS.

See also
Large eddy simulation
Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes equations

External links
DNS page (http://www.cfd-online.com/Wiki/Direct_numerical_simulation_(DNS)) at CFD-Wiki

References
1. Here the origin of the term direct numerical simulation (see e.g. p. 385 in Orszag, Steven A.
(1970). "Analytical Theories of Turbulence". Journal of Fluid Mechanics. 41 (1970): 363–386.
Bibcode:1970JFM....41..363O (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1970JFM....41..363O).
doi:10.1017/S0022112070000642 (https://doi.org/10.1017%2FS0022112070000642).) owes to
the fact that, at that time, there were considered to be just two principal ways of getting
theoretical results regarding turbulence, namely via turbulence theories (like the direct
interaction approximation) and directly from solution of the Navier–Stokes equations.

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Direct_numerical_simulation&oldid=977116877"

This page was last edited on 7 September 2020, at 01:32 (UTC).


Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this
site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia
Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.

You might also like