Comparative Assessment of LES and URANS for Flow Over a Cylinder at a Reynolds Number of 3900

Numerical simulations utilising turbulence models based on the Reynolds Averaged Navier Stokes (RANS) equations generally exhibit poor performance in predicting separated flow around cylinders. This paper assesses potential improvements offered by the three-dimensional unsteady RANS and Large Eddy Simulation (LES) methodologies in replicating the flow around a cylinder at a Reynolds number, based on diameter, of 3900. The performance is assessed against corresponding experimental data and two-dimensional unsteady RANS turbulence simulations