On the numerical simulation of perforated bluff bodies: A CFD study on a hollow porous 5:1 rectangular cylinder

In this work the flow through a hollow porous 5:1 rectangular cylinder made of perforated plates is numerically investigated by means of 2D URANS based simulations. Two approaches are adopted to account for the porous surfaces: in the first one the pores are explicitly modeled, so providing a detailed representation of the flow. In the second one, the porous surfaces are modeled by means of pressure jumps, which allow to take into account the presence of pores without reproducing the flow details. Results obtained by using the two aforementioned techniques are compared aiming at evaluating differences and similarities, as well as identifying the main flow features which might cause discrepancies. Results show that, even in the case of pores remarkably smaller than the immersed body, their arrangement can lead to local mechanisms able to affect the global flow arrangement, so limiting the accuracy of pressure jumps based simulations. Despite that, time averaged fields often show a reasonable agreement between the two approaches.