Abstract
Turbulent separated flows around an airship-like geometry (a prolate spheroid 6:1) are investigated using three turbulence modelings based on statistical and Large Eddy Simulation (LES) approaches. The turbulence models used in the simulations are a standard high Reynolds $k$-$\varepsilon$ model, a Smagorinsky LES model and a variational multiscale LES one. The flow of interest is characterized by a relatively low Mach number ($Mach =0.15$), an angle of attack set to $20^\circ$ and a Reynolds number fixed to $4´ 10^4$. The three-dimensional compressible Navier-Stokes equations equipped with the previous turbulent models are discretized by a mixed finite element/finite volume method. The simulations show that the primary longitudinal vortex is predicted by the three models, but only the VMS-LES model predicts a secondary vortical flow structure that is observed in experimental studies.