Assessment of Wall-Modeled Large-Eddy Simulation for Hypersonic Transitional Flows

Wall-modeled large-eddy simulations (WMLES) enable turbulence-resolving simulations at high Reynolds numbers by modeling the turbulence in the innermost part of the boundary layer. The WMLES approach relies theoretically on the idea that near-wall turbulence behaves in a somewhat universal manner, but this is not necessarily true for laminar/transitional flows. The topic of modeling transitional boundary layers in the context of WMLES has been largely unexplored. The present work aims at understanding what is possible and what is not when applying the WMLES technique to transitional flows, and what the grid resolution requirements are. To this end, simulations of a Mach 6 transitional boundary layer are conducted.