Large-eddy simulation of turbulent flows in a heated streamwise rotating channel

•Advanced modelling for the SGS stress tensor and heat-flux vector.•Impact of streamwise rotations on the transport of turbulent stresses and TKE.•Effects of centrifugal and Coriolis forces on the secondary flow structures.

In this paper, large-eddy simulation has been performed to investigate the impacts of the centrifugal and Coriolis forces on a heated plane channel flow subjected to streamwise system rotations. In order to study the rotation effects, a variety of rotation numbers Roτ ranging from 0 to 15 have been tested in conjunction with a fixed low Reynolds number Reτ = 300. The subgrid-scale effects on the budget balance of turbulent stresses and heat fluxes have been investigated, and the physical mechanisms underlying the transport of resolved turbulent stresses under the influence of streamwise system rotations have been thoroughly analyzed. Numerical simulations were performed using two dynamic subgrid-scale stress models and two dynamic subgrid-scale heat flux models; namely, the conventional dynamic model (DM) and an advanced dynamic nonlinear model (DNM) for closure of the filtered momentum equation, and the conventional dynamic eddy thermal diffusivity model (DEDM) and an advanced dynamic full linear tensor thermal diffusivity model (DFLTDM) for closure of the filtered thermal energy equation. The predictive performances of the DM and DNM have been carefully compared in conjunction with the same subgrid-scale heat flux model DFLTDM. In order to validate the numerical approach, turbulent statistics obtained from the simulations have been compared with the available direct numerical simulation data.