A velocity-estimation subgrid model constrained by subgrid scale dissipation

Purely dissipative eddy-viscosity subgrid models have proven very successful in large-eddy simulations (LES) at moderate resolution. Simulations at coarse resolutions where the underlying assumption of small-scale universality is not valid, warrant more advanced models. However, non-eddy viscosity models are often unstable due to the lack of sufficient dissipation. This paper proposes a simple modeling approach which incorporates the dissipative nature of existing eddy viscosity models into more physically appealing non-eddy viscosity SGS models. The key idea is to impose the SGS dissipation of the eddy viscosity model as a constraint on the non-eddy viscosity model when determining the coefficients in the non-eddy viscosity model. We propose a new subgrid scale model (RSEM), which is based on estimation of the unresolved velocity field. RSEM is developed in physical space and does not require the use of finer grids to estimate the subgrid velocity field. The model coefficient is determined such that total SGS dissipation matches that from a target SGS model in the mean or least-squares sense. The dynamic Smagorinsky model is used to provide the target dissipation. Results are shown for LES of decaying isotropic turbulence and turbulent channel flow. For isotropic turbulence, RSEM displays some level of backward dissipation, while yielding as good results as the dynamic Smagorinsky model. For channel flow, the results from RSEM are better than those from the dynamic Smagorinsky model for both statistics and instantaneous flow structures.