Comparison of wind pressure measurements on Silsoe experimental building from full-scale observation, wind-tunnel experiments and various CFD techniques

Abstract

The paper is the result of extensive research concentrated on analyzing the accuracy and numerical stability to assess the various turbulence models available widely and the state of the art techniques for the numerical simulation of turbulent fluid flow with a view of finding the most appropriate models for computational wind engineering. These investigations suggest that a turbulence model, suitable for wind engineering applications, should be able to model the anisotropy of turbulent flow while maintaining the ease of use and computational stability. Keeping this in mind five turbulence models such as Standard k −ε , RNG k −ε , Realizable k −ε , Reynolds Stress Method and Large Eddy Simulation have been tested in an attempt to account for anisotropic turbulence and curvature related strain effects and the same have been compared with the full-scale and wind-tunnel data for the present study. Better turbulence models that will be more accurately predict bluff body flow fields and that are numerically stable for complex geometries are of paramount importance if the uses of CFD techniques are to gain wide acceptance by the wind engineering
community.

Keywords: Silsoe Experimental Building, CFD, Low-rise building, Wind-tunnel