A convergence study of solutions using two two-equation RANS turbulence models on a finite volume solver for structured grids

In this paper, we present a new, modular, explicit time marching based, three-dimensional finite volume solver for compressible flows on structured grids: FEST3D (Finite volume Explicit STructured 3 Dimensional solver). We provide details of the solver along with the verification performed to test the implementation of the code. Also, we present a study on the convergence of RANS solutions for two different, two equation turbulence models: k − ω/k − ɛ (Menter, F. R., “Two-equation eddy-viscosity turbulence models for engineering applications,” AIAA Journal, Vol. 32, No. 8, 1994, pp. 1598–1605.) and k − kL (Abdol-Hamid, K. S., Carlson, J.-R., and Rumsey, C. L., “Verification and Validation of the k-kL Turbulence Model in FUN3D and CFL3D Codes,” 46th AIAA Fluid Dynamics Conference, 2016.). Our study shows that for subsonic flow, which do not have discontinuities, using a limiter for higher order state reconstruction only for turbulence variables improves the overall convergence of the solution.