Turbulent uniformity fluctuations in automotive catalysts – A RANS vs DES assessment

Attaining sufficient flow uniformity in catalytic aftertreatment systems is a major challenge for the automotive industry. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations offer means of analyzing and quantifying this flow uniformity in silico. In this work, predictions from numerical simulations of flow uniformity obtained using a conventional steady-state Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) approach are contrasted against comprehensive Detached Eddy Simulations (DES) where the large-scale turbulence is resolved in space and time. It is shown that the DES approach provides access to data on flow uniformity fluctuations that could be significant for the catalyst light-off behavior. However, the computational cost of the DES is approximately three orders of magnitude larger than that of the corresponding RANS simulation. •CFD simulations of an automotive exhaust gas aftertreatment system.•Uniformity index predictions compared for RANS and DES turbulence models.•DES provides turbulent uniformity index fluctuations not resolved with RANS.•Approximately three orders of magnitude larger computational cost with DES.