Simulation of Three-Dimensional Turbulent Flows around an Ahmed Body-Evaluation of Finite Differencing Schemes-

The Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations with the equations of the k-.epsilon. turbulence model are solved numerically in a general curvilinear system for a three-dimensional turbulent flow around an Ahmed body. The simulation is especially aimed at the evaluation of three finite differencing schemes for the convection term, which include the upwind differencing scheme(UDS), the second order upwind differencing scheme(SOU scheme) and the QUICK scheme. The drag coefficient, the velocity and pressure fields are found to be changed considerably with the adopted finite differencing schemes. It is clearly demonstrated that the large difference between computation and experiment in the drag coefficient is due to relatively high predicted values of pressure drag from both front part and vertical rear end base. The results also show that the simulation with the QUICK or SOU scheme predicts fairly well the flow field and gives more accurate drag coefficient than other finite differencing scheme.