On the accuracy of RANS simulations with DNS data

Simulation results conducted for incompressible planar wall-bounded turbulent flows with the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations with no modeling involved are presented. Instead, all terms but the molecular diffusion are represented by the data from direct numerical simulation (DNS). In simulations, the transport equations for velocity moments through the second order (and the fourth order where the data are available) are solved in a zero-pressure gradient boundary layer over a flat plate and in a fully-developed channel flow in a wide range of Reynolds numbers using DNS data from Sillero et al. (2013), Lee & Moser (2015), and Jeyapaul et al. (2015). The results obtained demonstrate that DNS data are the significant and dominant source of uncertainty in such simulations (hereafter, RANS-DNS simulations). Effects of the Reynolds number, flow geometry, and the velocity moment order as well as an uncertainty quantification technique used to collect the DNS data on the results of RANS-DNS simulations are analyzed. New criteria for uncertainty quantification in statistical data collected from DNS are proposed to guarantee the data accuracy sufficient for their use in RANS equations and for the turbulence model validation.