Richard J.A.M. Stevens

Professor at the University of Twente

Wind energy · Turbulence · Environmental flows

Publication 72 · Atmospheric turbulence

Wall modeled immersed boundary method for high Reynolds number flow over complex terrain

L. Liu, R.J.A.M. Stevens, Computers & Fluids 208, 104604 (2020).

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Main finding

A simplified wall-modelled immersed-boundary treatment retains mean-flow and stress agreement in several canonical neutral test cases. These within-implementation comparisons do not establish general terrain accuracy or quantify the claimed parallel-performance advantage.

Mean streamwise velocity profiles for four wall offsets on two grids
How to read the figure. Horizontally and time-averaged streamwise velocity for a reference case and four immersed-boundary wall offsets, on two grids, against the analytical profile. The offset cases collapse onto the reference, so the simpler wall-modelled immersed boundary keeps mean-flow fidelity; Figure 4 shows the same for the stresses. This is within-implementation evidence over canonical neutral cases, not a generally accurate terrain solver. Open the full-resolution figure. Figure 3. L. Liu and R.J.A.M. Stevens (2020). No separate licence is stated here; consult the original publication and credited source before reuse.

Why this matters

Complex terrain requires numerical representation when atmospheric walls cannot be resolved.

Research context

The method separates vertical velocity and shear-stress treatment at immersed wall nodes and removes extrapolation and iterative relaxation. The comparisons show retained mean-flow and stress fidelity within canonical neutral cases; terrain applications remain a separate test of the solver.

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