Transition modeling is the use of a

model A model is an informative representation of an object, person or system. The term originally denoted the plans of a building in late 16th-century English, and derived via French and Italian ultimately from Latin ''modulus'', a measure. Models c ...

to predict the change from

laminar Laminar means "flat". Laminar may refer to: Terms in science and engineering: *Laminar electronics or organic electronics, a branch of material sciences dealing with electrically conductive polymers and small molecules * Laminar armour or "banded ...

and

turbulent In fluid dynamics, turbulence or turbulent flow is fluid motion characterized by chaotic changes in pressure and flow velocity. It is in contrast to a laminar flow, which occurs when a fluid flows in parallel layers, with no disruption between ...

flows in fluids and their respective effects on the overall solution. The complexity and lack of understanding of the underlining physics of the problems makes simulating the interaction between laminar and turbulent flow to be difficult and very case specific. Transition does have the wide range of turbulence options available for most

computational fluid dynamics Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is a branch of fluid mechanics that uses numerical analysis and data structures to analyze and solve problems that involve fluid flows. Computers are used to perform the calculations required to simulate t ...

(CFD) applications for the following reasons: * Transition involves a wide range of scales where the energy and momentum transfer are strongly influenced by

inertial In classical physics and special relativity, an inertial frame of reference (also called inertial reference frame, inertial frame, inertial space, or Galilean reference frame) is a frame of reference that is not undergoing any acceleration. ...

non-linear In mathematics and science, a nonlinear system is a system in which the change of the output is not proportional to the change of the input. Nonlinear problems are of interest to engineers, biologists, physicists, mathematicians, and many other ...

effects that are unique to the simulation. * Transition also occurs by different means, such as natural and

bypass Bypass may refer to: * Bypass (road), a road that avoids a built-up area (not to be confused with passing lane) * Flood bypass of a river Science and technology Medicine * Bypass surgery, a class of surgeries including for example: ** Heart bypas ...

, and modeling all possibilities is difficult. Most CFD programs use

Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes equations The Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes equations (RANS equations) are time-averaged equations of motion for fluid flow. The idea behind the equations is Reynolds decomposition, whereby an instantaneous quantity is decomposed into its time-averaged ...

, in which averaging eliminates linear disturbance.

Common models

The following is a list of commonly employed transition models in modern engineering applications. * Stability theory approach * Intermittency Transport * Laminar Fluctuation Energy Method *

Direct numerical simulation A direct numerical simulation (DNS)Here the origin of the term ''direct numerical simulation'' (see e.g. p. 385 in ) owes to the fact that, at that time, there were considered to be just two principal ways of getting ''theoretical'' results r ...

Large Eddy Simulation Large eddy simulation (LES) is a mathematical model for turbulence used in computational fluid dynamics. It was initially proposed in 1963 by Joseph Smagorinsky to simulate atmospheric air currents, and first explored by Deardorff (1970). LES is ...

* Gamma-Re Transition Model

References

Aerodynamics Turbulence models {{Fluiddynamics-stub