Turbulence Mechanics Expert Group
Turbulence is present and exerts a strong influence in most heat and fluid flow processes in Engineering and in Nature. The understanding of turbulence and its effects is essential across a wide range of applications such as:
- External Aerodynamics
- Power Generation
- Convective Heat Transfer
- Process Engineering
- Environmental Flows
The study of Turbulence has a long tradition in Manchester, starting with Osborne Reynolds.
Group members
Group Leader: Prof Hector Iacovides
Membership: Dr Yacine Addad, Dr Imran Afgan, Dr David D Apsley, Dr Flavien Billard, Mr Dennis Cooper, Dr Mark Cotton, Dr Tim Craft, Dr Amir Keshmiri, Prof Konstantinos Kontis, Prof Brian Launder, Dr Adel Nasser, Dr Alistair Revell, Dr Stefano Rolfo, Prof Ali Turan, Dr Juan Uribe
The aim of the group is to advance the understanding of turbulent heat and fluid flow processes and to develop mathematical models of turbulence suitable for the reliable numerical simulation of industrial heat and fluid flow systems.
The above aim is pursued through a variety of experimental and computational research projects related to:
- The development of advanced statistical mathematical models of turbulence (RANS models) that do not depend on specific flow topography and can be applied to compute flow and heat transfer in arbitrary geometries. These include:
- stress transport models, satisfying physical realizability conditions.
- non-linear eddy-viscosity models, offering a computationally inexpensive method of resolving the turbulence anisotropy in many flows. - The development of reliable and economical strategies (advanced wall functions) for the inclusion of the effects of near-wall turbulence in the simulation of industrial flows.
- The application and validation of the above modelling strategies in flows
influenced by:
- geometrical complexity
- flow separation and reattachment
- impingement
- secondary motion
- rotation
- buoyancy
- unsteadiness (forced and natural)
- surfaces with fine-grain roughness
- heat transfer - The provision of detailed flow and thermal measurements for internal turbulent heat and fluid flow influenced by:
- strong curvature
- rib-roughness
- impingement
- rotation - The experimental investigation of buoyancy-driven flows.
- The experimental investigation of high speed aerodynamic flows.
- Flow visualisations and CFD animations
Examples of recent experimental and computational research in Heat and Fluid Flow.
This group contributes to the teaching of the MSc Course in Thermal Power and Fluids Engineering.