In the last few years a number of models of turbulent heat and momentum transport have been developed in which the effective transport coefficients are related to local values of certain turbulent correlations; these correlations are computed simultaneously with the mean field variables. Models of this kind achieve significantly greater breadth of applicability than do simpler approaches based on mean-flow quantities alone. One of the more successful of these newer approaches is the energy-dissipation model developed by Jones and Launder. Its originators applied it to the calculation of numerous boundary layer flows with severe streamwise pressure gradient or surface mass transfer. No applications have been reported, however, of its use to predict swirling flows, an omission that the present note remedies. The flow considered (that generated by a rotating disc in a quiescent atmosphere) produces very high gradients of swirl velocity in the vicinity of the disc which in turn brings to prominence terms in the kinetic energy and dissipation equations that have formerly been absent or of only small importance. This application thus provides a test of the generality of the model for an important class of fluid flows.
The Standard k-epsilon model, Launder and Sharma, 1974.