Direct Numerical Simulations for Flow and Noise Studies

A new high-fidelity multi-block structured curvilinear compressible Navier-Stokes solver purposely developed for exploiting high- performance computing systems (HPC) is introduced. The code has been designed with maximum efficiency in mind to allow cutting- edge high-fidelity turbulence and aeroacoustics simulations on HPC systems. The performance of the code on different HPC architectures is presented, showing very good scaling up to large core counts for realistic test cases, i.e. multi-block configurations. The code was applied to perform large-scale direct numerical simulations, i.e. model free simulations based on first principles, of a variety of flows for the study of transition, turbulence and flow generated noise. Results will be presented for i) turbulent axisymmetric supersonic wakes, focusing on the effect of inflow turbulence on the behavior of the near wake; ii) fully turbulent jets, looking at the jet noise generating mechanisms, iii) tripped airfoils, studying the noise generation of airfoils including wind tunnel installation effects, and possibly other examples.