Wind Flow Between Two Buildings - Simulation Example

Any building construction will create an impact on its immediate vicinity. A wind disturbance is one of the many potential impacts, as buildings may increase the wind speed, alter the wind direction, generate vortices, etc. These effects may impact pedestrian comfort and sometimes can be harmful or dangerous. The branch of civil engineering that focuses on the wind effects in urban areas is referred to as pedestrian wind comfort. Urban planners should take pedestrian wind comfort into account at the early design phase of any building or urban planning project.

In general, three fundamental methods can be used to assess wind impacts and hence wind pedestrian comfort: full-scale testing, reduced-scale testing and CFD modeling. In recent years, CFD modeling has become more and more popular because of its low cost and high efficiency. In particular, CFD is extremely valuable in the early design stage. By simulating a conceptual design, designers can identify potential problems — dangerous wind levels, for example — and correct them before moving to the prototyping stage. In this example, the wind flow between a high-rise and a low-rise building will be simulated and analyzed.

In this simulation, you will learn how to set up a simulation to analyze the wind flow between two buildings across the street from each other.

Download the Mesh file required for setting up the simulation and associated Case & Data files from here. Follow the instructions below to set up this simulation in Ansys Fluent starting with the mesh file. In case you face any issues setting up or running the simulation, refer to the corresponding initial and final Case and Data files.

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Let us now analyze the simulation results and understand the physics of wind flow between two adjacent buildings.