Study of wind forces on low-rise hip-roof building

Abstract

A comprehensive numerical study of wind effects using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) techniques on the low-rise hipped roof building is presented in this paper. Two Reynolds Averaged Navier–Stokes Equations (RANS) techniques such as the Standard k -e turbulence model and the Renormalization group (RNG) k - ε turbulence model were adopted in this study to predict the wind loads and the flow patterns around the hip-roof building. The computed wind pressure coefficients on the roof of the hip-roof buildings were compared with the wind-tunnel data. It was found that the results obtained using RNG k - ε turbulence model are in good agreement with that of the wind-tunnel data than the Standard k - ε turbulence model. It was also found that the CFD techniques are an effective and alternative tool, less time consuming, easy-to-handle, as well as low cost approach for evaluation of wind effects in comparison to wind-tunnel experiments, using the above turbulence models and with the available resources.

Keywords: CFD, Computational Fluid Dynamics, Wind force, Hip-roof building, Low-rise building, RANS approach, Wind Engineering.