Large-Eddy Simulation of the Flow Past a Circular Cylinder at Re = 130,000: Effects of Numerical Platforms and Single- and Double-Precision Arithmetic

Numerical simulations of sub-critical flow past a circular cylinder at Reynolds number Re = 130,000 are performed using two numerical platforms: the commercial, Ansys Fluent, and the open-source, OpenFOAM (finite volume method and large-eddy simulation based on a differential equation for the sub-grid kinetic energy). An overview of the available experimental data and similar large-eddy simulation studies is presented. A detailed analysis of all accumulated data demonstrates satisfactory agreement between them with a dispersion of approximately 20% for the main integral flow parameters. A detailed comparison of the results obtained using single- and double-precision numerical methods in Ansys Fluent did not reveal any noticeable discrepancies in the integral and local flow parameters as well as the spectral characteristics. It is shown that the behavior of the dynamic system of the fluid dynamic equations computed with single precision is stable by Lyapunov and does not lead to any loss of accuracy. The reconstructed attractors of the dynamic systems in phase space are limited by an ellipsoid.