Large Eddy Simulation of magnetohydrodynamic inhomogeneous turbulent flow for high magnetic Reynolds number

Large eddy simulations (LES) of high magnetic Reynolds number (Re_m) flow in the turbulent channel flow are performed. A hybrid formulation of spectral and finite difference methods is developed to carry out the simulations. The velocity and magnetic fields are initialized with laminar conditions. Validation of current code is carried out by comparing the turbulent flow results (without magnetic field) to previous published channel flow results. Quantities like evolution of kinetic and magnetic energy and variation of dissipation in the wall normal direction, magnetic and kinetic energy spectra are used to analyze the flow. The simulations are carried out at bulk Reynolds number, Re_b, of 2200 and unity magnetic Prandtl number for increasing levels of interaction parameter. Turbulent state occurs in channel flow at Re=2200 and the energy spectra shows a -5/3 Kolmogorov inertial sub-range scaling. At high Re_m, the Lorentz force term is added to the momentum equation. This paper aims to explore the interaction between kinetic and magnetic field in inhomogeneous environment. It is observed that higher interaction parameter inhibits the transition from laminar to turbulent transition which is visualized by the flow-direction magnetic field plots.