Turbulent flow computations on 3D unstructured grids

An edge-based finite element method is presented for the simulation of compressible turbulent flows on unstructured tetrahedral grids. A two equation k–ω turbulence model is employed and the standard Galerkin approach is used for spatial discretisation. Stabilisation of the resulting procedure is achieved by the addition of an appropriate diffusion. An explicit multistage time-stepping scheme is used to advance the solution in time to steady state. The performance of the algorithm is demonstrated for the simulation of a high Reynolds number transonic separated flow over a wing.