A shear-improved Smagorinsky model is introduced based on recent results concerning shear effects in wall-bounded turbulence by Toschi et al. (2000). The Smagorinsky eddyviscosity is modified as ν T = (C s ∆) 2 (|S|−| S |): the magnitude of the mean shear | S | is subtracted to the magnitude of the instantaneous resolved strain-rate tensor |S|; here C S is the standard Smagorinsky constant and ∆ denotes the grid spacing. This subgrid-scale model is tested in large-eddy simulations of plane-channel flows at Reynolds numbers Re τ = 395 and Re τ = 590. First comparisons with the dynamic Smagorinsky model and direct numerical simulations, including mean velocity, turbulent kinetic energy and Reynolds stress profiles, are shown to be extremely satisfactory. The proposed model, in addition of being physically sound, has a low computational cost and possesses a high potentiality of generalization to more complex non-homogeneous turbulent flows.

The normalized turbulent dissipation rate $C_\epsilon$ is studied in decaying and forced turbulence by direct numerical simulations, large-eddy simulations, and closure calculations. A large difference in the values of $C_\epsilon$ is observed for the two types of turbulence. This difference is found at moderate Reynolds number, and it is shown that it persists at high Reynolds number, where the value of $C_\epsilon$ becomes independent of the Reynolds number, but is still not unique. This difference can be explained by the influence of the nonlinear cascade time that introduces a spectral disequilibrium for statistically nonstationary turbulence. Phenomenological analysis yields simple analytical models that satisfactorily reproduce the numerical results. These simple spectral models also reproduce and explain the increase of $C_\epsilon$ at low Reynolds number that is observed in the simulations