Hydraulic jumps, frequently observed in natural environments and human-made structures like rivers, channels, and dams, are characterized by intense turbulence, air entrainment, and energy dissipation. Given their widespread occurrence and complex flow dynamics, this phenomenon has been widely studied for more than a century through experimental, analytical, and, in more recent years, computational approaches. Turbulence in hydraulic jumps encompasses a wide spectrum of temporal and spatial scales, where near the air–water interface, the surface tension may be of importance, but behind the wavefront, larger scale motions create significant mixing. As a result, computational analysis of such flow requires consideration of several intricacies, making it both challenging and demanding. Reynolds-Averaged Navier–Stokes models are commonly used in the 20 years; however, they aren’t capable of accurately predicting interfacial areas between air and water, i.e., air entrainment and formation and breakup of bubbles. Thanks to recent advancements in computing power, the implementation of high-fidelity and high-resolution turbulence modeling techniques, namely large eddy simulation and direct numerical simulation, has become attainable. This study delves into turbulence and self-similarity in classic stable hydraulic jumps using the large eddy simulation and volume of fluid methods for turbulence modeling and interface capturing. Turbulent structures are resolved up to the Hinze scale with a high temporal frequency, facilitating a full-scale modeling of the phenomena. Ultimately, mean velocities, Reynolds and Favre stresses, alongside self-similarity profiles, will be presented and compared to the experimental results of previous studies, where available.
