Simulation of Atmospheric Boundary Layer flows
Description of the Problem
In addition to vertically exchanging moisture and aerosols in the atmosphere, Atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) flows affect transportation, renewable power generation (wind and solar), pollutant dispersion, etc.. Thus, being able to simulate them is important for the study of wind farms, urban canyons, and basic weather modeling. However, these highly turbulent flows are impacted by density stratification from surface heating and cooling, regional weather patterns and terrain morphology. They are further complicated by Coriolis effects due to Earth’s rotation. In collaboration with the Exawind project, researchers have focused on developing reliable high-fidelity Large-Eddy-Simulation (LES)-models for ABL flows and improved wall models.
Scientific Relevance and Impact
Our work on this Lighthouse Case will extend the state-of-the-art in LES simulations of the stable and convective ABL to examine the quality of LES solutions, and in particular their dependence on the mesh, subgrid-scale (SGS) parameters, numerical discretization, and surface boundary conditions. It will advance the state of the art in terms of algorithms for exascale simulations of ABL flows, and wall and SGS models for high-order SEM methods.
Codes Used
Nek5000 and NekRS