Large eddy simulation of the flow past a circular cylinder at ReD=3900

A large eddy simulation (LES) is performed for the turbulent flow around a circular cylinder at ReD=3900 with a cell-centered finite volume code that solves the compressible Navier–Stokes equations. The results are compared with the direct numerical simulation of Ma et al. (J. Fluid Mech. 410 (2000) 29) and the experiments of Ong and Wallace (Exp. Fluids 20 (1996) 441). It is shown that short averaging times, which have been used by several previous LES do not lead to converged mean values. For the largest averaging time used in this study, the results are in good agreement with the aforementioned data. In addition, the realizability of the modeled subgrid scale stresses and the computed Reynolds stresses is analyzed.