Cooperative project for CFD prediction of pedestrian wind environment in the Architectural Institute of Japan

CFD (computational fluid dynamics) is being increasingly applied to the prediction of the wind environment around actual high-rise buildings. Despite this increasing use, the prediction accuracy and many factors that might affect simulation results are not yet thoroughly understood. In order to clarify ambiguities and make a guideline for CFD prediction of the wind environment, a working group was organized by the Architectural Institute of Japan. This group has carried out various comparative studies as follows. First stage: flow fields around two types of single high-rise buildings. Second stage: Flow field around a high-rise building located in a city. Last stage: Flow fields around two types of Building Complexes in actual urban areas. This paper describes some of the results of the investigation by the working group, and discusses the influences of various calculation conditions on CFD results, and also on the present status and the problems in CFD prediction of the wind environment. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.