A volume-penalization method is implemented in a tri-periodic pseudo-spectral code. The numerical scheme is studied and the method is tested and validated thanks to benchmarks involving linear anisotropic effects (propagation and reflection of inertial waves or internal gravity waves) or the impact of vortical structures on a penalized plane. This numerical tool is then applied to rotating turbulent flows confined in a cylindrical geometry. The global effects of confinement are observed (small-scale anisotropy) as well as near-wall local effects (modification of the pdfs , vertical elongation of the large turbulent structures, etc). Finally, the penalization method is used in order to force the turbulence in a von Kármán swirling flow context. The generated flows are studied in detail and compared to previous theoretical works. Several geometries for the blades are tested and the resulting flows exhibit significantly different structures for each shape of the blades.
