scholarly journals Impact of Surface Flux Formulations and Geostrophic Forcing on Large-Eddy Simulations of Diurnal Atmospheric Boundary Layer Flow

2010 ◽  
Vol 49 (7) ◽  
pp. 1496-1516 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vijayant Kumar ◽  
Gunilla Svensson ◽  
A. A. M. Holtslag ◽  
Charles Meneveau ◽  
Marc B. Parlange

Abstract The impact of surface flux boundary conditions and geostrophic forcing on multiday evolution of flow in the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) was assessed using large-eddy simulations (LES). The LES investigations included several combinations of surface boundary conditions (temperature and heat flux) and geostrophic forcing (constant, time varying, time and height varying). The setup was based on ABL characteristics observed during a selected period of the Cooperative Atmosphere–Surface Exchange Study—1999 (CASES-99) campaign. The LES cases driven by a constant geostrophic wind achieved the best agreement with the CASES-99 observations specifically in terms of daytime surface fluxes and daytime and nighttime profiles. However, the nighttime fluxes were significantly overestimated. The LES cases with the surface temperature boundary condition and driven by a time- and height-varying geostrophic forcing showed improved agreement with the observed nighttime fluxes, but there was less agreement with other observations (e.g., daytime profiles). In terms of the surface boundary condition, the LES cases driven by either surface temperature or heat fluxes produced similar trends in terms of the daytime profiles and comparisons with data from soundings. However, in reproducing the fluxes and nighttime profiles, the agreement was better with imposed temperature because of its ability to interact dynamically with the air temperature field. Therefore, it is concluded that surface temperature boundary condition is better suited for simulations of temporally evolving ABL flow as in the diurnal evolution of the ABL.

2001 ◽  
Vol 446 ◽  
pp. 309-320 ◽  
Author(s):  
IVAN MARUSIC ◽  
GARY J. KUNKEL ◽  
FERNANDO PORTÉ-AGEL

An experimental investigation was conducted to study the wall boundary condition for large-eddy simulation (LES) of a turbulent boundary layer at Rθ = 3500. Most boundary condition formulations for LES require the specification of the instantaneous filtered wall shear stress field based upon the filtered velocity field at the closest grid point above the wall. Three conventional boundary conditions are tested using simultaneously obtained filtered wall shear stress and streamwise and wall-normal velocities, at locations nominally within the log region of the flow. This was done using arrays of hot-film sensors and X-wire probes. The results indicate that models based on streamwise velocity perform better than those using the wall-normal velocity, but overall significant discrepancies were found for all three models. A new model is proposed which gives better agreement with the shear stress measured at the wall. The new model is also based on the streamwise velocity but is formulated so as to be consistent with ‘outer-flow’ scaling similarity of the streamwise velocity spectra. It is therefore expected to be more generally applicable over a larger range of Reynolds numbers at any first-grid position within the log region of the boundary layer.


Author(s):  
Özgül İlhan ◽  
Niyazi Şahin

Abstract Large eddy simulation (LES) seeks to predict the dynamics of the organized structures in the flow, that is, local spatial averages u ̄ $\bar{u}$ of the velocity u of the fluid. Although LES has been extensively used to model turbulent flows, very often, the model has difficulty predicting turbulence generated by interactions of a flow with a boundary. A critical problem in LES is to find appropriate boundary conditions for the flow averages, which depend on the behavior of the unknown flow near the wall. In the light of the works of Navier and Maxwell, we use boundary conditions on the wall. We compute the appropriate friction coefficient β for channel flows and investigate its asymptotic behavior as the averaging radius δ → 0 and as the Reynolds number Re → ∞. No-slip conditions are recovered in the first limit, and free-slip conditions are recovered in the second limit. This study is not intended to develop new theories of the turbulent boundary layer; we use available boundary layer theories to improve numerical boundary conditions for flow averages.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benedikt Seitzer ◽  
Bernd Leitl ◽  
Frank Harms

<p>Large-eddy simulations are increasingly used for studying the atmospheric boundary layer. With increasing computational resources even obstacle-resolving Large-eddy simulations became possible and will be used in urban climate studies more frequently. In these applications, grid sizes are in the order of a few meters. Whereas major urban structures can be resolved in general, details like aerodynamically rough surface structures can not be resolved explicitly. Based on the original fields of application, boundary conditions in Large-eddy simulations were initially formulated for surfaces of homogeneous roughness and for wall-distances much larger than the roughness sublayer height (Hultmark et al., 2013). The height of the roughness sublayer depends on the size of small-scale obstacles present on the surface exposed to the flow (Raupach et al., 1991). Typically, boundary conditions are evaluated between the surface and the first grid level. Thus, grid resolution in obstacle-resolved Large-Eddy simulations should also be a question of scales and therefore has to be chosen carefully (Basu and Lacser, 2017; Maronga et al., 2020). <br />In several wind tunnel experiments presented here, we measured the near-wall influence of differently scaled and shaped objects on a flow and its turbulence characteristics. Experimental setups were replicated numerically using the PALM model (Maronga et al. 2019). In a first, more generic experiment, the flow over horizontally homogeneous surfaces of different roughness was investigated. In a second experiment, the spatial separation of the turbulence scales was investigated in a more complex flow case. These experiments lead to considerations on model grid sizes in urban type Large-eddy simulations. The limitations of interpreting simulation results within the urban canopy layer are highlighted. There is an urgent need to reconsider how near-wall results of urban large-eddy simulations are generated and interpreted in the context of practical applications like flow and transport modelling in urban canopies. <br /><br /><em><strong>References</strong></em><br /><em>Basu, S. and Lacser, A. (2017). A Cautionary Note on the Use of Monin–Obukhov Similarity Theory in Very High-Resolution Large-Eddy Simulations. Boundary-Layer Meteorol, 163(2):351–355.</em></p> <p><em>Hultmark, M., Calaf, M., and Parlange, M. B. (2013). A new wall shearstress model for atmospheric boundary layer simulations. J Atmos Sci,70(11):3460–3470.</em></p> <p><em>Maronga, B., et al. (2020). Overview of the PALM model system 6.0. Geosci Model Dev Discussions, 06(June):1–63.</em></p> <p><em>Maronga, B., Knigge, C., and Raasch, S. (2020). An Improved Surface Boundary Condition for Large-Eddy Simulations Based on Monin–Obukhov Similarity Theory: Evaluation and Consequences forGrid Convergence in Neutral and Stable Conditions. Boundary-Layer Meteorol, 174(2):297–325.</em></p> <p><em>Raupach, M. R., Antonia, R. A., and Rajagopalan, S. (1991). Rough-wall turbulent boundary layers. Appl Mech Rev, 44(1):1–25</em></p>


2017 ◽  
Vol 56 (11) ◽  
pp. 2963-2980 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoxue Wang ◽  
Yuguo Li ◽  
Kai Wang ◽  
Xinyan Yang ◽  
Pak Wai Chan

AbstractThe atmospheric boundary exhibits an obvious diurnal cycle. The daily cycle of climate variation has a significant effect on urban airflow, and an understanding of it is very important for city-scale environmental control. A new and simple daily cycle temperature boundary condition for simulations of urban airflows with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is described herein. An analytical surface temperature formula was obtained after simplifying longwave radiation and sensible heat flux terms. The formula provides a reasonably good prediction of ground surface temperatures on sunny days without adding much complexity. The accuracy of the prediction of daily surface temperature variations in homogeneous soils was evaluated with a benchmark experiment and with weather station data. The new boundary condition was implemented in the commercial CFD software Fluent for a city-scale model. The implementation demonstrates the importance of including diurnal temperature profiles and atmospheric boundary conditions in CFD simulations of urban plumes in which an ideal urban heat island circulation occurs.


2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 455-458 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yign Noh ◽  
Yeonju Choi

AbstractUsing large-eddy simulations (LES) it is shown that the depth of a diurnal thermocline h should be scaled by the Zilitinkevich scale LZ, not by the Monin–Obukhov length scale LMO, contrary to the proposition by Pearson et al. Their argument to explain the slower increase of h than LMO using the effect of the preexisting thermocline is also invalid.


Author(s):  
Björn Maronga ◽  
Dan Li

AbstractWe revisit the longstanding problem of grid sensitivity, i.e., the lack of grid convergence in large-eddy simulations (LES) of the stable boundary layer. We use a comprehensive set of LES of the well-known Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment Atmospheric Boundary Layer Study 1 (GABLS1) case with varying grid spacings between 12.5 m and 1 m to investigate several physical processes and numerical features that are possible causes of grid sensitivity. Our results demonstrate that there are two resolution regimes in which grid sensitivity manifests differently. We find that changing the numerical advection schemes and the subgrid-scale models alters the simulation results, but the options tested do not fully address the grid-sensitivity issue. Moreover, sensitivity runs suggest that the surface boundary condition and the interaction of the surface with the near-surface flow, as well as the mixing with the free atmosphere, are unlikely to be the causes of the observed grid sensitivity. One interesting finding is that the grid sensitivity in the fine grid-spacing regime (grid spacings $$\le 2\,\mathrm{m}$$ ≤ 2 m ) is closely related to the reduction in the energy content of large-scale turbulence, leading to less turbulence kinetic energy and hence lower boundary-layer heights. The present work demonstrates that there is still an urgent need to address this grid-sensitivity issue in order to perform reliable LES of the stable boundary layer.


1989 ◽  
Vol 200 ◽  
pp. 511-562 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helmut Schmidt ◽  
Ulrich Schumann

Turbulence in the convective boundary layer (CBL) uniformly heated from below and topped by a layer of uniformly stratified fluid is investigated for zero mean horizontal flow using large-eddy simulations (LES). The Rayleigh number is effectively infinite, the Froude number of the stable layer is 0.09 and the surface roughness height relative to the height of the convective layer is varied between 10−6 and 10−2. The LES uses a finite-difference method to integrate the three-dimensional grid-volume-averaged Navier–Stokes equations for a Boussinesq fluid. Subgrid-scale (SGS) fluxes are determined from algebraically approximated second-order closure (SOC) transport equations for which all essential coefficients are determined from the inertial-range theory. The surface boundary condition uses the Monin–Obukhov relationships. A radiation boundary condition at the top of the computational domain prevents spurious reflections of gravity waves. The simulation uses 160 × 160 × 48 grid cells. In the asymptotic state, the results in terms of vertical mean profiles of turbulence statistics generally agree very well with results available from laboratory and atmospheric field experiments. We found less agreement with respect to horizontal velocity fluctuations, pressure fluctuations and dissipation rates, which previous investigations tend to overestimate. Horizontal spectra exhibit an inertial subrange. The entrainment heat flux at the top of the CBL is carried by cold updraughts and warm downdraughts in the form of wisps at scales comparable with the height of the boundary layer. Plots of instantaneous flow fields show a spoke pattern in the lower quarter of the CBL which feeds large-scale updraughts penetrating into the stable layer aloft. The spoke pattern has also been found in a few previous investigations. Small-scale plumes near the surface and remote from strong updraughts do not merge together but decay while rising through large-scale downdraughts. The structure of updraughts and downdraughts is identified by three-dimensional correlation functions and conditionally averaged fields. The mean circulation extends vertically over the whole boundary layer. We find that updraughts are composed of quasi-steady large-scale plumes together with transient rising thermals which grow in size by lateral entrainment. The skewness of the vertical velocity fluctuations is generally positive but becomes negative in the lowest mesh cells when the dissipation rate exceeds the production rate due to buoyancy near the surface, as is the case for very rough surfaces. The LES results are used to determine the root-mean-square value of the surface friction velocity and the mean temperature difference between the surface and the mixed layer as a function of the roughness height. The results corroborate a simple model of the heat transfer in the surface layer.


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