Local grid refinement in Large-Eddy Simulations

A method for performing nested-grid calculations with a Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) code is described. The grid consists of a coarse mesh and a fine mesh which overlaps the coarse in some region. A standard finite-volume method is used on both meshes. By means of grid communication, the velocity and pressure at both meshes are matched. To check that large eddies which are already resolved on the coarse grid are not affected by the nesting procedure, a simple two-dimensional mixing layer is simulated. Several simulations of this flow have been carried out with a different number of grid points on the nested grid. It is found that, without much extra computational effort, the grid-nesting improves the turbulent statistics with respect to the results found on the coarse mesh. This improvement occurs first of all in the region where grid refinement is applied, but better results are also found on the coarse mesh outside the grid-refinement region. Furthermore, it is shown that the large-scale structures in this flow are not influenced by the boundary between the coarse and fine grid.