Evaluation of engineering turbulence models for complex supersonic flows

Supersonic flows past a series of two-dimensional compression ramps were simulated by employing three popular engineering turbulence models, namely Spalart-Allmaras(SA), k-ω, shear stress transport(SST). The performance of the three engineering turbulence models was evaluated and summarized. All three turbulence models are reasonably accurate to predict the surface pressure, skin friction and heat transfer distribution for ″weak″ shock/boundary-layer interactions, but show significant discrepancies with experimental data for ″strong″ interactions. Each turbulence model shows much different simulation capability with the separation lengths increased, and the numerical method has much effect too.