Role of Inflow Turbulence and Surrounding Buildings on Large Eddy Simulations of Urban Wind Energy

Giulio Vita, Anam Hashmi, Simone Salvadori, Hassan Hemida, Charalampos Baniotopoulos

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)

Abstract

Predicting flow patterns that develop on the roof of high-rise buildings is critical for the development of urban wind energy. In particular, the performance and reliability of devices largely depends on the positioning strategy, a major unresolved challenge. This work aims at investigating the eect of variations in the turbulent inflow and the geometric model on the flow patterns that develop on the roof of tall buildings in the realistic configuration of the University of Birmingham’s campus in the United Kingdom (UK). Results confirm that the accuracy of Large Eddy Simulation
(LES) predictions is only marginally aected by dierences in the inflow mean wind speed and turbulence intensity, provided that turbulence is not absent. The eect of the presence of surrounding buildings is also investigated and found to be marginal to the results if the inflow is turbulent.
The integral length scale is the parameter most aected by the turbulence characteristics of the inflow, while gustiness is only marginally influenced. This work will contribute to LES applications on the urban wind resource and their computational setup simplification.
Original languageEnglish
Article number5208
Pages (from-to)1-23
Number of pages23
JournalEnergies
Volume2020
Issue number13
Early online date6 Oct 2020
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 6 Oct 2020

Keywords

  • urban wind energy; Large Eddy Simulation; turbulence statistics; energy harvesting

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