Meshless large-eddy solution of turbulent flow

A turbulent flow of Newtonian incompressible fluid in two dimensions is considered. The partial differential equations describing the conservation of mass and momentum are solved by a strong-form meshless method using five-noded local collocation with multiquadric radial basis functions and explicit time-stepping. The fractional step method is used for the pressure–velocity coupling. The large-eddy simulation (LES) model, the Smagorinsky-Lilly model for calculating turbulent viscosity, and the Van Driest damping function describe the turbulent motion of the fluid flow. The novel application of the described numerical approach is thoroughly tested on a channel flow and backward-facing step flow. The simulations are systematically assessed by comparing the meshless results with standard finite-volume method large-eddy simulation results for Re=5000. Additionally, the parametric study and the influence of the filter width, effective distances used to calculate filter width, and the Smagorinsky constant were assessed for the meshless solution procedure. The obtained results agree with the reference results, approving the suitability of the developed meshless solution for solving turbulent fluid flow problems based on LES formulation. The study has opened the way for using the described approach in more complicated industrial fluid flow problems.