12.17.3 Troubleshooting

You can use the postprocessing options not only for the purpose of interpreting your results but also for investigating any anomalies that may appear in the solution. For instance, you may want to plot contours of the $k$ field to check if there are any regions where $k$ is erroneously large or small. You should see a high $k$ region in the region where the production of $k$ is large. You may want to display the turbulent viscosity ratio field in order to see whether or not the turbulence takes full effect. Usually the turbulent viscosity is at least two orders of magnitude larger than molecular viscosity for fully-developed turbulent flows modeled using the RANS approach (i.e., not using LES). You may also want to see whether you are using an adequate near-wall mesh for the enhanced wall treatment. To ensure this, you can display filled contours of Re $_y$ (turbulent Reynolds number) overlaid on the mesh.