Code verification/validation with respect to experimental data banks

The past 40 years have known a spectacular development of CFD capabilities. It is now possible to compute complex three-dimensional unsteady flows even at the design stage by solving the Unsteady Averaged Navier-Stokes Equations (URANS approach) and progress are made every day in still more advanced approaches such as LES and DNS. However, the confidence in CFD methods is still limited because of uncertainties in the numerical accuracy of the codes and of the inadequacy of the turbulence models they use. Thus, there is still a need for well made and well documented experiments to validate the codes and to help in their improvement. Such experiments must also fulfil quality criteria to be considered as safe enough and really useful for code validations. The article presents a discussion of the strategy to be followed to ensure the reliability and accuracy of a code by placing emphasis on the experimental aspects of code validation. The purpose is illustrated by considering recent examples of CFD validation operations based on basic - or building block - experiments. The first case considers an experiment on a purely laminar shock wave/boundary layer interaction used to assess the numerical accuracy of several codes. Other examples deal with the crucial problem of the validation of turbulence models in strongly interacting flows. The conclusion stresses the importance to constitute high quality data banks on typical flows still difficult to predict. The problem of data dissemination is also briefly addressed. (C) 2003 Editions scientifiques et medicales Elsevier SAS. All rights reserved.