## 12.10.2 Standard Wall Functions

The standard wall functions in FLUENT are based on the proposal of Launder and Spalding [ 197], and have been most widely used for industrial flows. They are provided as a default option in FLUENT.

Momentum

The law-of-the-wall for mean velocity yields

 (12.10-1)

where
 (12.10-2)

 (12.10-3)

 and = von Kármán constant (= 0.4187) = empirical constant (= 9.793) = mean velocity of the fluid at point = turbulence kinetic energy at point = distance from point to the wall = dynamic viscosity of the fluid

The logarithmic law for mean velocity is known to be valid for . In FLUENT, the log-law is employed when .

When the mesh is such that at the wall-adjacent cells, FLUENT applies the laminar stress-strain relationship that can be written as
 (12.10-4)

It should be noted that, in FLUENT, the laws-of-the-wall for mean velocity and temperature are based on the wall unit, , rather than ( ). These quantities are approximately equal in equilibrium turbulent boundary layers.

Energy

Reynolds' analogy between momentum and energy transport gives a similar logarithmic law for mean temperature. As in the law-of-the-wall for mean velocity, the law-of-the-wall for temperature employed in FLUENT comprises the following two different laws:

• linear law for the thermal conduction sublayer where conduction is important

• logarithmic law for the turbulent region where effects of turbulence dominate conduction
The thickness of the thermal conduction layer is, in general, different from the thickness of the (momentum) viscous sublayer, and changes from fluid to fluid. For example, the thickness of the thermal sublayer for a high-Prandtl-number fluid (e.g., oil) is much less than its momentum sublayer thickness. For fluids of low Prandtl numbers (e.g., liquid metal), on the contrary, it is much larger than the momentum sublayer thickness.

In highly compressible flows, the temperature distribution in the near-wall region can be significantly different from that of low subsonic flows, due to the heating by viscous dissipation. In FLUENT, the temperature wall functions include the contribution from the viscous heating [ 382].

The law-of-the-wall implemented in FLUENT has the following composite form:
 (12.10-5)

where is computed by using the formula given by Jayatilleke [ 165]:
 (12.10-6)

and

 = turbulent kinetic energy at point P = density of fluid = specific heat of fluid = wall heat flux = temperature at the cell adjacent to wall = temperature at the wall = molecular Prandtl number ( ) = turbulent Prandtl number (0.85 at the wall) = Van Driest constant (= 26) = mean velocity magnitude at

Note that, for the pressure-based solver, the terms

and

will be included in Equation  12.10-5 only for compressible flow calculations.

The non-dimensional thermal sublayer thickness, , in Equation  12.10-5 is computed as the value at which the linear law and the logarithmic law intersect, given the molecular Prandtl number of the fluid being modeled.

The procedure of applying the law-of-the-wall for temperature is as follows. Once the physical properties of the fluid being modeled are specified, its molecular Prandtl number is computed. Then, given the molecular Prandtl number, the thermal sublayer thickness, , is computed from the intersection of the linear and logarithmic profiles, and stored.

During the iteration, depending on the value at the near-wall cell, either the linear or the logarithmic profile in Equation  12.10-5 is applied to compute the wall temperature or heat flux (depending on the type of the thermal boundary conditions).

The function for given by equation Equation  12.10-6 is relevant for the smooth walls. For the rough walls, however, this function is modified as follows:
 (12.10-7)

where is the wall function constant modified for the rough walls, defined by . To find a description of the roughness function , you may refer to Equation  7.13-3 in Section  7.13.1.

Species

When using wall functions for species transport, FLUENT assumes that species transport behaves analogously to heat transfer. Similarly to Equation  12.10-5, the law-of-the-wall for species can be expressed for constant property flow with no viscous dissipation as

 (12.10-8)

where is the local species mass fraction, and are molecular and turbulent Schmidt numbers, and is the diffusion flux of species at the wall. Note that and are calculated in a similar way as and , with the difference being that the Prandtl numbers are always replaced by the corresponding Schmidt numbers.

Turbulence

In the - models and in the RSM (if the option to obtain wall boundary conditions from the equation is enabled), the equation is solved in the whole domain including the wall-adjacent cells. The boundary condition for imposed at the wall is

 (12.10-9)

where is the local coordinate normal to the wall.

The production of kinetic energy, , and its dissipation rate, , at the wall-adjacent cells, which are the source terms in the equation, are computed on the basis of the local equilibrium hypothesis. Under this assumption, the production of and its dissipation rate are assumed to be equal in the wall-adjacent control volume.

Thus, the production of is computed from
 (12.10-10)

and is computed from
 (12.10-11)

The equation is not solved at the wall-adjacent cells, but instead is computed using Equation  12.10-11. and Reynolds stress equations are solved as detailed in Sections  12.5.3 and 12.7.9, respectively.

Note that, as shown here, the wall boundary conditions for the solution variables, including mean velocity, temperature, species concentration, , and , are all taken care of by the wall functions. Therefore, you do not need to be concerned about the boundary conditions at the walls.

The standard wall functions described so far are provided as a default option in FLUENT. The standard wall functions work reasonably well for a broad range of wall-bounded flows. However, they tend to become less reliable when the flow situations depart too much from the ideal conditions that are assumed in their derivation. Among others, the constant-shear and local equilibrium hypotheses are the ones that most restrict the universality of the standard wall functions. Accordingly, when the near-wall flows are subjected to severe pressure gradients, and when the flows are in strong non-equilibrium, the quality of the predictions is likely to be compromised.

The non-equilibrium wall functions offered as an additional option can improve the results in such situations.

 Standard wall functions are available with the following viscous models: K-epsilon Reynolds Stress

Previous: 12.10.1 Overview
Up: 12.10 Near-Wall Treatments for
Next: 12.10.3 Non-Equilibrium Wall Functions