Comparative study of Reynolds stress budgets of thermally and calorically perfect gases for high-temperature supersonic turbulent channel flow

To study the Reynolds stress budgets, direct numerical simulations of high-temperature supersonic turbulent channel flow for thermally perfect gas and calorically perfect gas are conducted at Mach number 3.0 and Reynolds number 4800 combined with a dimensional wall temperature of 596.30 K. The reliability of the direct numerical simulation data is verified by comparison with previous results ( J Fluid Mech 1995, vol. 305, pp.159–183). The effects of variable specific heat are important because the vibrational energy excited degree exceeds 0.1. The viscous diffusion, pressure–velocity gradient correlation, and dissipation terms in the Reynolds stress budgets for TPG, except the streamwise component, are larger than those for calorically perfect gas close to the wall. Compressibility-related term decreases when thermally perfect gas is considered. The major difference for both gas models is mainly due to variations in mean flow properties. Inter-component transfer related to pressure–velocity gradient correlation term can be distinguished into inner and outer regions, whose critical position is approximately 16 for both gas models.