The numerical computation of turbulent flows

The paper reviews the problem of making numerical predictions of turbulent flow. It advocates that computational economy, range of applicability and physical realism are best served at present by turbulence models in which the magnitudes of two turbulence quantities, the turbulence kinetic energy k and its dissipation rate ϵ, are calculated from transport equations solved simultaneously with those governing the mean flow behaviour. The width of applicability of the model is demonstrated by reference to numerical computations of nine substantially different kinds of turbulent flow.