* Corresponding author.

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Imperial College of Science, Techno-

logy and Medicine, London SW7 2BX, UK. Tel.: #44-171-594-7031; fax: #44-171-581-7921.
E-mail address: d.gosman@ic.ac.uk (A.D. Gosman)
Journal of Wind Engineering
and Industrial Aerodynamics 81 (1999) 21}39
Developments in CFD
for industrial and environmental applications
in wind engineering
A.D. Gosman*
Computational Dynamics Limited, Olympic House, 317 Latimer Road, London W10 6RA, UK
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine,
London SW7 2BX, UK
Abstract
An overview is provided of the capabilities and limitations of CFD as a tool for wind
engineering, with particular reference to commercial CFD codes. The status of the modelling of
turbulence, heat and mass transfer is brie#y reviewed and developments in computer solution
methodology are outlined, with emphasis on geometry-handling and mesh-generation capabili-
ties and parallel computing. Examples are shown of recent applications in the built environ-
ment and other industries which illustrate the current state of art. The overall conclusion is that,
although there are well-known weaknesses in the physics modelling, the level of prediction
accuracy is already su$cient for some purposes. 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights
reserved.
Keywords: Wind engineering; CFD; Environment
1. Introduction
1.1. Nature of yuids-related problems in the built environment
Flows within and around buildings and other structures and related thermal and
dispersion phenomena play an essential role in determining the environment of the
0167-6105/99/$- see front matter 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 1 6 7 - 6 1 0 5 ( 9 9 ) 0 0 0 0 7 - 0
populace which use them and sometimes the integrity of the structures themselves.
For these reasons, there is strong incentive to "nd ways of modelling these phe-
nomena. The most recent of these is computational #uid dynamics (CFD).
Steady-state and transient wind loadings are often necessary inputs to structures
design, especially those which are large and/or may be exposed to severe weather
conditions. The latter possibility particularly applies to bridges and o!shore structures
like oil platforms. For bridges it is often also necessary to consider the #uid/ structures
interaction aspect, in which the wind-induced deformations may feedback into the #ow
itself, causing at worst ampli"cation of the forces, leading to structural failure.
E!ects on populace can consist, at the relatively benign level, of comfort and
long-term health; and in severe cases, immediate risk of injury. Comfort is in#uenced
by a combination of local air velocity, temperature and humidity (along with radiative
heat transfer) in a complex way [1,2]. The comfort measures are somewhat subjective
and therefore, the accuracy of the thermo#uids information required for their evalu-
ation is arguably not high. At the other extreme, environmental safety considerations
often require the possibility of "re or other types of release of harmful gases to be
considered, where the best possible prediction of rates of spread and dispersion and
associated local instantaneous temperature and concentration levels is needed [3,4].
Long-term exposure to low-level pollutants generated by automobile and electricity
generating plant emissions provide yet another area where wind-induced dispersion
analysis is required [5,6].
At the fundamental level, all of these #ow-related phenomena obey the same basic
laws of physics as in any other circumstances, be it around and within aircraft, ships or
automobiles, in the ducts and chambers of gas turbines or power station furnaces, etc.
However, each speci"c area has its own particular characteristics and priorities. Thus,
large-scale wind engineering, involving consideration of the atmospheric boundary
layer, as in#uenced by thermal strati"cation, surface roughness, Coriolis and other
e!ects, is more statistical than deterministic in character, particularly because it is
seldom if ever possible to "nd the necessary meteorological data to assemble well-
de"ned boundary conditions [6]. For this reason, such studies are often performed on
wind-tunnel models, which are used for CFD &calibration' and/or for obtaining data
for design purposes [7]. However, although wind tunnels can provide well-de"ned
and controllable conditions, they cannot span the range of conditions in the atmo-
spheric boundary layer: so there is an inevitable uncertainty in the use of these studies
for the real application.
There is also a strong interest in large-scale unsteady e!ects for reasons explained
above. These present additional challenges to both CFD and wind-tunnel studies.
Unsteady e!ects are also present in dispersion processes and can be important; for
example, in the case of particularly dangerous gaseous substances the peak levels of
exposure are often as important, if not more so, than the time-mean values.
Internal #ows in rooms and larger spaces are low-speed and often strongly buoy-
ancy-in#uenced [8] features which, for reasons explained later, o!er particular chal-
lenges for CFD simulation (and, for that matter, for experimental model studies).
A further characteristic of problems of the wind engineering and the built environ-
ment is that they typically involve a wide range of scales. Thus, for example, external
22 A.D. Gosman / J. Wind Eng. Ind. Aerodyn. 81 (1999) 21}39
wind-loading and dispersion studies may require simultaneous analysis of a region
of the atmospheric boundary layer, the general character of the #ow around a group
of buildings embedded therein and the localised details around a particular building
of interest in the group. Internal #ow studies can involve scales from room size down
to the details and dimensions of ventilation supply grills and the natural convection
boundary layers on the surfaces of radiators, windows and walls. Attempts to limit
attention to particular regions in such applications inevitably requires estimation of
boundary conditions, with attendant uncertainties.
Finally, it should be noted that built environment analysis sometimes requires
a total system approach, involving more than one type of tool [8]. This will parti-
cularly apply if it is to be used in the future as part of a control strategy. Building
heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) design is an obvious example of
such a need, as yet un"lled, because there are complex #ow and thermal interactions
between the di!erent rooms and interconnecting hallways and ducts, the HVAC plant
and the external environment, which cannot be practically addressed by one all-
embracing CFD simulation. Nevertheless, as described below, there are now many
useful ways in which CFD can be applied in the built environment.
1.2. Scope and contents of paper
This paper provides an overview of the current capabilities of CFD for applications
in the built environment and illustrates some of them by way of examples. The
emphasis is on general-purpose industrial CFD code methodology rather than
specialised techniques and software developed within research institutes. This is not to
decry the research codes } they are often pointers to future directions for industrial
code development. In what follows, Section 2 outlines the mathematical modelling
approaches employed to describe the physics of the #ows and Section 3 outlines the
numerical solution techniques. For the sake of brevity, the presentation is devoid of
equations but references are provided to the relevant literature. The application
examples are presented in Section 4 along with an indication of future developments,
and an overall summary is given in Section 5.
2. Physics modelling
2.1. Turbulence
As is well}known, the cornerstone of industrial CFD is the Navier}Stokes equation
set, expressed for turbulent #ows in terms of suitably-averaged velocities and pres-
sures to make them amenable to numerical solution without excessive computing
overheads. The conventional and still most widely}employed approach is time-
averaging, also described as Reynolds averaging, in which the dependent variables
take their time-averaged values and the equations are then referred to as the
Reynolds-Averaged Navier}Stokes (RANS) set. (This approach is nowadays often
generalised to ensemble averaging, in which case it is also applicable to non-stationary
A.D. Gosman / J. Wind Eng. Ind. Aerodyn. 81 (1999) 21}39 23
#ows, albeit with some ambiguity about how to distinguish between turbulent and
non-turbulent, non-stationary components.)
Averaging results in an additional set of six unknown terms appearing in mo-
mentum conservation equations, loosely interpreted as additional pseudo-stresses
arising from the turbulent motions of all scales. In the case of the RANS equations,
these are termed the &Reynolds stresses'; and the additional equations that are derived
to determine them are known as turbulence models. The derivation necessarily
requires a (substantial) degree of approximation due to the complexities of the
turbulence. This situation has resulted in a plethora of models, each of which generally
works well for the particular types of #ow for which it was developed, but not
necessarily for others. There are numerous detailed reviews by specialists of the
available models (e.g. [9,10]), some of which focus speci"cally on their performance on
applications in wind engineering and the built environment. Thus, only a few salient
points will be made here.
E The RANS equations can only provide limited information about the unsteady
aspects of turbulent #ows: so they are not best suited for this purpose, apart from
some speci"c instances.
E The available RANS models range from a large number of variants of the well-
known k} approach, which is probably the simplest type that is practically useful,
to full di!erential Reynolds stress transport models. In general terms, the more
complex models tend to better represent the e!ects of turbulence anisotropy, which
can be important in some applications, including those involving turbulent disper-
sion and buoyancy e!ects [10]. However, they usually o!er insu$cient bene"ts in
return for the substantial extra e!ort required to solve them.
E Buoyancy and low Reynolds number e!ects in both the near-wall and bulk #ow
regions have proved to be particularly di$cult to capture correctly in turbulence
models, although there have been some signi"cant advances recently [11]. How-
ever, in the case of near-wall #ows these often require direct calculation of boundary
layers rather than use of wall functions, which can be excessively expensive.
E Because there is no clearly superior model which works well over a wide range of
applications, commercial CFD codes tend to o!er a number of options from the
classes mentioned above. Unfortunately, and as a re#ection of the state of the art,
the only reliable guide to selection from these for a particular application is
previous experience on a similar problem.
E Certain types of application appear to defy accurate solution by the available
RANS models. A notable example is the #ow around buildings, where the pressure
distributions, wake structures and turbulence characteristics on or near some
surfaces are not well captured by any RANS model [12,13].
Over the past decade large eddy simulation (LES), an alternative turbulence
modelling approach, has shown increasing promise to overcome the limitations and
de"ciencies of Reynolds averaging. In LES, spatial averaging is performed on the scale
of the computational grid spacing, with the result that modelling is only required of
the pseudo-stress terms that represent turbulent motions below this scale. The
small-scale motions are believed to be more regular in behaviour. Representations of
them have come to be known as subgrid scale (SGS) models. Again there are recent
24 A.D. Gosman / J. Wind Eng. Ind. Aerodyn. 81 (1999) 21}39
reviews [14,15] which summarise the state of the art in this "eld, from which the
following observations are drawn.
E LES is, for obvious reasons, much better suited to prediction of unsteady e!ects
than the RANS, since it computes directly all but the small-scale, high-frequency
components.
E Subgrid turbulence modelling is not an exact science and already a signi"cant
number of alternative SGS models have appeared in the literature [14,16]. Fortu-
nately, however, the variability in performance between &reasonable' SGS models
tends to be much less than between RANS alternatives (albeit sometimes still
appreciable), presumably because the former need only represent a small part of the
turbulence spectrum.
E Although LES is at a much earlier stage of development than RANS modelling,
there are already applications where it is proving to be superior. One such example
is the #ow around a building [12,17,18].
E LES is inherently more expensive than RANS, because it always calculates the
unsteady motions and requires adequate temporal resolution and su$ciently long
integration times to reach a statistically representative #ow state. By contrast,
RANS methodology allows a direct, economical iterative approach to the steady
state (if one exists).
E Advances in CFD methodology and computer hardware have, nevertheless, made it
feasible to apply LES to industrial problems and it is now emerging as an option in
commercial CFD codes.
E There are still substantial unresolved problems in LES, including the challenge to
economically model the near-wall region and di$culties in specifying #ow details at
other boundaries, notably inlets [14].
2.2. Heat/mass transfer
As already noted, many #ow-related problems in the built environment also involve
simultaneous heat and/ or mass transfer: examples are heating and air conditioning;
"re and smoke spread; and gaseous pollution. In the case of heat transfer, all three
modes } convection, conduction and radiation } often need to be taken into account.
In addition, consideration of solar radiation [8] is often required.
The basic equations governing these processes are the di!erential set for conserva-
tion of energy and mass of individual chemical components. In the case of heat
conduction and radiation, these can be formulated without approximation (al-
though for radiation simpli"ed forms are sometimes used for economy) and are
incorporated in most general-purpose CFD codes. Some also cater for solar radiation
transport.
Convective heat and mass transfer requires consideration and modelling of turbu-
lence e!ects, which have been addressed mainly in the RANS context, although there
is an increasing e!ort in LES. The issues and approaches are similar to those for the
#ow "eld modelling with some additions:
E Accurate prediction of the relevant #ow "eld features is a prerequisite to good
heat/mass transfer modelling.
A.D. Gosman / J. Wind Eng. Ind. Aerodyn. 81 (1999) 21}39 25
E Surface heat transfer is particularly sensitive to details of the wall boundary layers,
including their turbulence structure } ironically often more than the #ow itself.
Thus, predictions of heat transfer coe$cients may be less accurate than friction
factors. This is sometimes compensated for pragmatically, by employing empirical
heat transfer coe$cient correlations in the CFD model [26].
E Buoyancy-in#uenced #ows are particularly challenging to model due to the strong
interactions between the #ow and density "elds, which can either augment or
diminish the turbulence, according to whether the #ow is unstably or stably
strati"ed, respectively. Stable strati"cation can lead to locally low Reynolds num-
bers and additional associated modelling di$culties [8,11].
E Pollutant dispersion modelling from localised sources involves similar issues as heat
transfer, including sensitivity to turbulence anisotropy, even in simple boundary
layer #ows [7].
E Many of these issues and developments are at the leading edge of turbulence
research and therefore may not all be re#ected in current commercial CFD codes.
On the other hand, it should also be recognised that even the existing models in
these codes often give useful results and acceptable accuracy, particularly in relation
to comfort requirements.
2.3. Combined CFD and systems modelling
As noted earlier, it is impractical and unnecessary to attempt to model the
#uid/thermal behaviour of an entire building and its HVAC system using CFD. The
practice to date has been to focus on particular parts (e.g. individual rooms) and
model them in isolation, using estimated or measured boundary conditions. On the
other hand, it is not uncommon, at least for large buildings, to use so-called &lumped
parameter' or &systems' models which consider the whole building and HVAC compo-
nents but use simpli"ed and approximate representations of each part. There is now
a move towards integrating systems and CFD approaches, as has already happened in
other industries, so that the latter can be employed to provide local, detailed analysis
while the former provides the boundary conditions and interactions with other parts.
3. CFD methodology and codes
3.1. Overview
In this section, the main elements of the methodology used in current commercial
CFDcodes to solve the governing equations will be brie#y outlined: they comprise the
space discretisation (i.e. computational mesh), equation discretisation and solution
algorithm. Commercial CFD is, however, more than just numerics; codes must cater
for mesh generation and other problem setup operations, along with solution control
and results display. It must also be geared to producing results rapidly and placing
minimum demands on the user. The last-named requirements encourage exploitation
of new computer hardware and software developments.
26 A.D. Gosman / J. Wind Eng. Ind. Aerodyn. 81 (1999) 21}39
3.2. Geometry-handling via unstructured meshes
One of the most dramatic and signi"cant areas of advance in CFD over the past
decade has been in mesh #exibility, allowing virtually unlimited geometry-handling
capability and local resolution control [19]. Thus, from a starting point of purely
Cartesian meshes, with associated shape and re"nement restrictions, most codes now
o!er some or all of the following:
E Unstructured body-"tting meshes, i.e. those whose elements/cells can be put to-
gether in a Lego-like fashion rather than be constrained to a regular block structure.
E Option of working with hexahedra or tetrahedra or other polyhedral cell shapes;
and, in some instances, with mixtures thereof (termed hybrid meshes), which
facilitates mesh generation and resolution control.
E Ability to locally subdivide existing cells to produce &embedded re"nement' as
a means of better capturing geometrical or #ow details.
E Freedom to join together separate mesh blocks without requiring continuity at
their interface (&arbitrary or unconstrained interfacing') } another measure which
makes mesh generation easier and also facilitates design changes.
E Dynamic features, including distortion, sliding and addition or removal of cells
during a calculation, to cater for moving surfaces. These capabilities are useful in
speci"c applications areas, like #uid}structure interactions, where the structural
deformations are signi"cant and have to be accommodated by the #uids mesh; and
wind inducement by moving vehicles, where relative motion between di!erent parts
of the mesh must be allowed.
Many of these features will be further described and illustrated later, in Section 4.
3.3. Discretisation and solvers
The major commercial CFD codes all use "nite-volume methodology, in which the
governing equations are discretised in their volume-integral form, enabling the under-
lying conservation laws to be enforced on each individual cell as well as overall. In
general, a selection of spatial and temporal discretisation schemes is o!ered, ranging
in the former case from "rst to third order and in the latter up to second order. The
choice is a compromise between accuracy and numerical stability, although progress
is being made in providing both at the second-order level, which is generally regarded
as the minimum requirement for LES.
Solution algorithms are mainly implicit, both to allow rapid iterative solution for
steady-state calculations and also freedom from the local time-step restrictions of
explicit methods in unsteady calculations, a bene"t even in LES. Many codes use
SIMPLE-like segregated solution strategies, although there some also o!er coupled
methods for steady-state applications. Simultaneous equation solution is usually by
conjugate gradient or multigrid procedures.
3.4. Automatic and solution-adaptive meshing
The advances in mesh #exibility have proceeded hand in hand with the develop-
ment of techniques for rapid automated mesh generation, with one tending to drive
A.D. Gosman / J. Wind Eng. Ind. Aerodyn. 81 (1999) 21}39 27
Fig. 1. Speedup performance data for several industrial cases calculated with the STAR-HPC code on
a distributed-memory parallel computer. Speedup is de"ned as ratio of computing times on one and
N processors.
the other. This capability was "rst o!ered for all-tetrahedral meshes, but is now
available for other types, including &trimmed hexahedral' meshes, comprised predomi-
nantly of hexahedra, with &polyhedral' boundary cells formed when their corners or
edges are allowed to be cut o! by the boundaries of the model to ensure body-"tting.
It is also possible, for both types, to introduce layers of prisms adjacent to walls,
allowing better resolution of boundary layers, provided of course that the CFD code
is able to work with these types of hybrid grid. Examples of meshes generated in these
ways will be shown in Section 4.
A recent development for industrial CFD has been the possibility to adaptively
re"ne the mesh during the course of a #uids calculation to produce better resolution,
using the one or more of the #exible mesh features described earlier. Currently,
the re"nement in commercial codes is usually based on some user-selected feature(s)
like local velocity or temperature gradient, which is somewhat subjective. However,
more rigorous error measuring techniques are beginning to emerge.
3.5. Parallel computing
Computer hardware developments have been another important contributor to the
advance of industrial CFD. At one end of the scale, the speed and memory capacity of
PCs are now such that they can be used for the smaller commercial applications,
especially if rapid turnaround and high accuracy are not essential.
However, in many of those industries in which CFD has already proven its worth,
there are pressures for faster turnaround, greater accuracy and ever-larger solution
28 A.D. Gosman / J. Wind Eng. Ind. Aerodyn. 81 (1999) 21}39
domains, the last-named because by moving the boundaries to regions where condi-
tions are reasonably well known, the need for guesswork or measurements is reduced
or even eliminated. An illustrative example would be study of the #ow around
a building in the proximity of others, whose in#uence should ideally be represented by
including them in the calculation. Realistic mesh sizes for such applications are
moving from the many hundreds of thousands into the millions; but despite this they
are feasible thanks to the adaptation of commercial CFD codes to the new breed of
parallel computer, based on relatively low-cost, high- performance &commodity' RISC
processors (as found in high-end workstations) and standard programming languages
and operating systems. Fig. 1 shows that it is possible for a range of real industrial
applications to obtain speedups on these machines which are closely proportional to
the number of processors. This means, for example, that on a 10-processor machine
a calculation requiring one day on a workstation could be done in around 2.5 h.
4. Example applications
4.1. Wind ewects on, near and within structures
Fundamental studies like those reported in Ref. [13] show quite clearly the
limitations of RANS models in predicting the wind-generated #ows around building-
like structures. Nevertheless, the achievable level of accuracy is viewed as acceptable
for some purposes and has led to CFD being used in a variety of applications, as
illustrated by the examples presented in this section.
Fig. 2 shows a proposed shopping complex, for which CFD simulations have been
performed to investigate the wind e!ects of various di!erent building designs and
arrangements [20]. The type of computational mesh used is also displayed in
Fig. 2 } it is body-"tted and unstructured and in this instance, was produced in a semi-
automatic way using a range of meshing &tools'. Also shown in this plot is the
near-surface wind strength distribution for this particular design, generated by a wind
entering from the upper left quadrant. Fig. 3 shows aspects of the overall and
near-surface wind "elds produced by one of the other designs, for the same incoming
direction. The presence of strong vortical structures generated by the upwind building
is clearly evident.
Public transport is another area of application of CFD, for wind engineering and
environmental comfort and safety reasons. Fig. 4 shows a computer model of an entire
metro station [21], including the ticket hall, which has two substantial covered
ground-level entrances, the tunnels and escalators leading to the train platforms and
a train. A part of the ticket hall and associated computational mesh are shown in
Fig. 5. It can be seen that, here again, the #exibility of unstructured meshing is
required by the irregular topology. In addition, use is also made of arbitrary interfac-
ing to allow di!erent styles of entrance structure to be tried. One of the aspects of
interest is the e!ect of wind strength and direction on the air motions generated within
the station, features of which are displayed in Fig. 5. The simulation also included
nearby buildings which are not shown.
A.D. Gosman / J. Wind Eng. Ind. Aerodyn. 81 (1999) 21}39 29
Fig. 2. Proposed shopping complex, showing computational mesh and predicted near-surface wind
strength. Courtesy of BSRIA.
CFD studies have also been performed of the induced #ows within metro train
tunnels and platforms caused by the train motion [21]. The latter can be fully
simulated by codes which have dynamic mesh change capabilities, including sliding
interfaces. Such studies have also extended to "re simulations, allowing the rate of
spread of combustion gases from various hypothetical locations and strengths of "re
to be calculated.
Fig. 6 shows a simulation of the spread of an e%uent plume from a low-level
vent located within a building complex. Calculations of this kind are used to help
to position the vent so as to minimise the exposure of nearby populace to the
plume.
Another area of CFDapplication is to o!shore structures, like the semi-submersible
accommodation platform depicted in Fig. 7 and the subject of a combined wind
tunnel and CFD study [22]. Features of interest here include wind loads, plotted in
the same "gure for a particular angle of heel, and #ow patterns (Fig. 8). The latter have
implications for safety (including takeo! and landing of helicopters) and comfort, and
also explosion and "re consequences. This study concluded that for CFD to be
competitive with the wind tunnel for the wind loading aspects of this particular
application, more work was needed in the areas of rapid mesh generation, accuracy
improvement and computing speed. Fortunately, as outlined earlier, these have been
the focus of development in CFD and substantial improvements have been made in
the last few years.
30 A.D. Gosman / J. Wind Eng. Ind. Aerodyn. 81 (1999) 21}39
Fig. 3. Alternative shopping complex arrangement without tower building, showing predicted features of
overall #ow and near-surface wind strength. Courtesy of BSRIA.
Fig. 4. Design of metro station for which full CFD simulations were performed, including e!ects of
surrounding buildings (not shown). Courtesy of London Underground.
A.D. Gosman / J. Wind Eng. Ind. Aerodyn. 81 (1999) 21}39 31
Fig. 5. Part of metro station of Fig. 4 showing unstructured mesh (including arbitrary interfacing) and
aspects of #ow "eld. Courtesy of London Underground.
Fig. 6. Simulation of plume dispersal from low-level vent located in building complex.
4.2. Interior HVAC applications
The possibility of using CFD for internal #ow simulations was demonstrated by
model studies some years ago (see, for example Ref. [23]), although these did not by
and large provide a good testing ground for buoyancy e!ects which introduce the
additional modelling di$culties mentioned earlier. Nevertheless, quite extensive use
has been made of commercial CFD codes in this area, for all manner of applications
ranging from rooms [24,26] to large atriums [8], conference halls, auditoriums and
stadiums and airport buildings.
By way of an example, extracts from simulations of the ventilation of an auditorium
are shown in Fig. 9, showing the general layout, and Fig. 10, depicting air motion and
32 A.D. Gosman / J. Wind Eng. Ind. Aerodyn. 81 (1999) 21}39
Fig. 7. Calculated wind-generated pressure loads on semi-submersible accommodation platform at 153
inclination. Courtesy of Danish Maritime Institute.
Fig. 8. Flow "eld around accommodation platform of Fig. 7. Courtesy of Danish Maritime Institute.
&age' (i.e. residence time) in a vertical bisecting plane. This study enabled the air supply
and extraction arrangements to be designed to provide an acceptable environment for
all occupants.
A.D. Gosman / J. Wind Eng. Ind. Aerodyn. 81 (1999) 21}39 33
Fig. 9. CFD model of auditorium, including ventilation apertures. Courtesy of Sulzer Innotec.
Fig. 10. Predicted velocity and air age distributions in section through auditorium of Fig. 9. Courtesy of
Sulzer Innotec.
4.3. Pollutant dispersion
Wind-induced pollutant dispersion is another area of application of CFD. Early
studies, like those described in Ref. [7], focused on relatively &simple' situations, like
the spread of a chimney plume over #at terrain or escaped gas dispersal behind
a single building, using special research codes.
Commercial codes are now being used to study somewhat more complex situations,
like the pollutant spread in &street canyons', i.e. city streets bounded by relatively tall
buildings. Fig. 11 shows preliminary results for one such study currently in progress
34 A.D. Gosman / J. Wind Eng. Ind. Aerodyn. 81 (1999) 21}39
Fig. 11. Example comparisons of predicted and measured concentration pro"les in model street canyon
case.
[25] where, in this case, both CFD calculations and wind tunnel experiments are
being performed on a model arrangement of four buildings, allowing the accuracy of
prediction to be assessed. In these cases, it was moderate } as shown in Fig. 11,
concentration levels were replicated to within the repeatability of the measurements
($10%), but the e!ects of small changes in building alignment were not completely
captured. Of course, the calculations also provide a substantial amount of additional
information about #ow features and dispersion mechanisms which would be time-
consuming to obtain by wind-tunnel measurement and not feasible in the full-scale
situation.
4.4. Future prospects
Although the foregoing examples indicate that commercial CFD software is already
being used for diverse applications in the built environment, the full capabilities and
potential are still far from being exploited. This may be due in part to economics } the
cost bene"ts of performing CFD simulations may not be su$ciently apparent to the
industrial concerns and their clients. Here, it is up to the CFD companies and
designers and architects to provide clear evidence of the economic bene"ts.
Another factor may be ease of use } CFD has traditionally been viewed as
&high-tech' and requiring highly specialised personnel. This, however, is no longer
true because CFD methodology and codes have been developed to the stage where
they are much easier to use (but still require a reasonable level of knowledge of #ow
physics to properly interpret and exploit the results). Again, it is necessary for
protagonists of the technology to demonstrate that it is nowmuch more &friendly' than
hitherto.
A.D. Gosman / J. Wind Eng. Ind. Aerodyn. 81 (1999) 21}39 35
Fig. 12. Automobile passenger compartment with automatically-generated trimmed hexahedral mesh.
An indication of the full potential can be gained from the automotive industry,
which has its own wind engineering and built environment problems. Those which are
currently being addressed using CFD include:
E Flow over a vehicle including the underside and wheel wells, allowing aerodynamic
forces to be calculated, ventilation apertures to be sited, brake cooling systems to be
designed, etc. [27,28]. Also, when combined with calculation of
E Flow and heat transfer in the engine compartment enables predictions of thermal
loads on underhood components [28,29]. This has also been extended to
E Coupled CFD and systems code analysis of the entire cooling system comprising
radiator, condenser, heater, etc.
E Passenger compartment HVAC analysis [2], including HVAC unit and ducting to
outlets.
E Radiator, condenser and HVAC component (e.g. fans, heat exchangers) design.
Some representative examples of these analyses, which also illustrate the use of the
advanced automeshing tools which are now available, will now be presented. Fig. 12
shows the passenger compartment of a car, with driver, which has been rapidly
meshed using a method which works by &trimming' an initially all-hexahedral mesh so
36 A.D. Gosman / J. Wind Eng. Ind. Aerodyn. 81 (1999) 21}39
Fig. 13. Predicted velocity magnitude distribution in section through passenger compartment of Fig. 12.
that it body-"ts the geometry, producing some multi-faceted polyhedral cells at the
outermost surface of the mesh in the process. Aspects of the predicted #ow "eld for
this case are plotted in Fig. 13.
Finally, Fig. 14 displays the predicted pressure distribution on a large freight truck
calculated using an automatically generated tetrahedral mesh, portions of which are
also shown. This further illustrates that geometrical complexity is no longer an
obstacle to rapid analysis, thanks to mesh generation and CFD solver developments.
5. Conclusions
CFD has already made inroads as a new tool for use in wind engineering. Many
applications have already been made to thermo#uids problems in the built environ-
ment but there is potential for much more, as has already been demonstrated in other
industrial sectors.
The fact that commercial CFD code developers have made dramatic improvements
to versatility, ease of use and speed (thanks also to hardware developments) should
provide help to expand the takeup of the technology by industries concerned with
wind engineering. Work still needs to be done to improve the accuracy of the physics
modelling in speci"c areas, but existing modelling can produce useful results in many
applications.
A.D. Gosman / J. Wind Eng. Ind. Aerodyn. 81 (1999) 21}39 37
Fig. 14. Calculated pressure distribution on large truck, performed using automatically-generated tet-
rahedral mesh.
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