Assessment of the vortex method for Large Eddy Simulation inlet conditions

The Vortex Method (VM) based boundary condition of Sergent (2002) was implemented in the general purpose CFD solver Fluent. It is shown that the VM offers a relatively inexpensive and accurate way to generate random fluctuations representing a turbulent flow field at the inlet. Since the generated velocity field is temporally and spatially correlated, it is a much more realistic representation of turbulence than the one obtained with a simple velocity distribution, using a random generator. Validations are reported for fully developed turbulent channel flow, pipe flow and separated hill flow.