A cell-based smoothed finite element method for incompressible turbulent flows.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the feasibility of solving turbulent flows based on smoothed finite element method (S-FEM). Then, the differences between S-FEM and finite element method (FEM) in dealing with turbulent flows are compared. Design/methodology/approach: The stabilization scheme, the streamline-upwind/Petrov-Galerkin stabilization is coupled with stabilized pressure gradient projection in the fractional step framework. The Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations with standard k-epsilon model are selected to solve turbulent flows based on S-FEM and FEM. Standard wall functions are applied to predict boundary layer profiles. Findings: This paper explores a completely new application of S-FEM on turbulent flows. The adopted stabilization scheme presents a good performance on stabilizing the flows, especially for very high Reynolds numbers flows. An advantage of S-FEM is found in applying wall functions comparing with FEM. The differences between S-FEM and FEM have been investigated. Research limitations/implications: The research in this work is limited to the two-dimensional incompressible turbulent flow. Practical implications: The verification and validation of a new combination are conducted by several numerical examples. The new combination could be used to deal with more complicated turbulent flows. Social implications: The applications of the new combination to study basic and complex turbulent flow are also presented, which demonstrates its potential to solve more turbulent flows in nature and engineering. Originality/value: This work carries out a great extension of S-FEM in simulations of fluid dynamics. The new combination is verified to be very effective in handling turbulent flows. The performances of S-FEM and FEM on turbulent flows were analyzed by several numerical examples. Superior results were found compared with existing results and experiments. Meanwhile, S-FEM has an advantage of accuracy in predicting boundary layer profile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]