• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.107-116
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• 2019

The use of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is becoming an increasingly popular means to model wind flows in and around buildings. The first published application of CFD to both indoor and outdoor building airflows was in the 1970's. Since then, CFD usage has expanded to include different aspects of building design. Wind tunnel testing (WTT) on buildings for wind loads goes back as far as 1908. Gustave Eiffel built a pair of wind tunnels in 1908 and 1912. Using these he published wind loads on an aircraft hangar in 1919 as cited in Hoerner (1965 - page 74). The second of these wind tunnels is still in use today for tests including building design ($Damljanovi{\acute{c}}$, 2012). The Empire State Building was tested in 1933 in smooth flow - see Baskaran (1993). The World Trade Center Twin Towers in New York City were wind tunnel tested in the mid-sixties for both wind loads, at Colorado State University (CSU) and the [US] National Physical Laboratory (NPL), as well as pedestrian level winds (PLW) at the University of Western Ontario (UWO) - Baskaran (1993). Since then, the understanding of the planetary boundary layer, recognition of the structures of turbulent wakes, instrumentation, methodologies and analysis have been continuously refined. There is a drive to replace WTT with computational methods, with the rationale that CFD is quicker, less expensive and gives more information and control to the architects. However, there is little information available to building owners and architects on the limitations of CFD for flows around buildings and communities. Hence building owners, developers, engineers and architects are not aware of the risks they incur by using CFD for different studies, traditionally conducted using wind tunnels. This paper will explain what needs to happen for CFD to replace wind tunnels. Ultimately, we anticipate the reader will come to the same conclusion that we have drawn: both WTT and CFD will continue to play important roles in building and infrastructure design. The most pressing challenge for the design and engineering community is to understand the strengths and limitations of each tool so that they can leverage and exploit the benefits that each offers while adhering to our moral and professional obligation to hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.185-197
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• 2014

Ventilation and fire safety design in road tunnels are one of the most complex issues that need to be carefully considered and analysed in the designing stage of any potential upgrade of ventilation and other fire safety systems in tunnels. Placement road tunnels space has an important influence on fire safety, especially when considering the effect of adverse wind conditions that significantly influence ventilation characteristics. The appropriate analysis of fire and smoke control is almost impossible without the use of modern simulation tools (e.g., CFD) due to a large number of influential parameters and consequently extensive data. The impact of the strong wind is briefly presented in this paper in the case of a longitudinally ventilated road tunnel Kastelec, which is exposed to various severe wind conditions that significantly influence its fire safety. The possibility of using CFD simulations in the analysis of the tunnel placement in space terms negative effect of wind influence on the tunnel ventilation is clearly indicated.

• 한국전산유체공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2001.10a
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• pp.37-43
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• 2001

The methods of atmospheric boundary layer generation in test section were reviewed. To utilize conventional aerodynamic wind tunnels as atmospheric wind tunnels, boundary layer growth should be accelerated. To achieve this, improvement of boundary layer generation devices is required and it might be done by CFD. In this respect, CFD application cases in boundary generation devices were reviewed and potential areas were considered. Some cases are tried by Fluent 5 code.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.119-144
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• 2017

The traditional method for the simulation of high Reynolds number (Re) effects on wind loads on cooling tower models in wind tunnels focuses only on the mean wind pressure distribution. Based on observed effects of some key factors on static/dynamic flow characteristics around cooling towers, the study reported in this paper describes a comprehensive simulation method using both mean and fluctuating wind pressure distributions at high Re as simulation targets, which is indispensable for obtaining the complete full-scale wind effects in wind tunnels. After being presented in this paper using a case study, the proposed method is examined by comparing the full covariance matrices and the cross-spectral densities of the simulated cases with those of the full-scale case. Besides, the cooling tower's dynamic structural responses obtained using the simulated wind pressure fields are compared with those obtained by using the full-scale one. Through these works, the applicability and superiority of the proposed method is validated.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.297-307
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• 2022

Over the past few decades, the use of wind tunnels has been increasing as a result of the rapid growth of cities and the urge to build taller and non-typical structures. While the accuracy of a wind tunnel study on a tall building requires several aspects, the precise extraction of wind pressure plays a significant role in a successful pressure test. In this research study, a low-cost expandable synchronous multi-pressure sensing system (SMPSS) was developed and validated at Ryerson University's wind tunnel (RU-WT) using electronically scanning pressure sensors for wind tunnel tests. The pressure system consists of an expandable 128 pressure sensors connected to a compact data acquisition and a host workstation. The developed system was examined and validated to be used for tall buildings by comparing mean, root mean square (RMS), and power spectral density (PSD) for the base moments coefficients with the available data from the literature. In addition, the system was examined for evaluating the mean and RMS pressure distribution on a standard low-rise building and were found to be in good agreement with the validation data.

• 한국태양에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.96-102
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• 2008

For centuries now, wind tunnels have been a key element in scientific research in a number of fields. Experimenting with racecars, airplanes, weather patterns, birds, and various other areas has been made much easier because of its development. In the racing field, for example, the information gathered from this testing can mean the difference between winning and losing a race. Weather simulations can also provide valuable information regarding building stability and safety. This has become very important when designing buildings today. Valuable information concerning bird flight has also been collected based on wind tunnel testing. Wind tunnels have a variety of important uses in the world today. Wind tunnel that used here is an open loop low speed wind tunnel. The fundamental principles of this tunnel is moving the air using exhaust fan In the rear side, and placing the cube in the external balance system which used to measure the working force. This experiment is using 50mm cube of finished wood. From this experiment we can get Drag Force (FD), The Reynolds Number (Re) and The Coefficient of Brae (CD).

• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.16 no.11
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• pp.1511-1521
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• 2002

High-speed moist air or steam flow has long been of important subject in engineering and industrial applications. Of many complicated gas dynamics problems involved in moist air flows, the most challenging task is to understand the nonequilibrium condensation phenomenon when the moist air rapidly expands through a flow device. Many theoretical and experimental studies using supersonic wind tunnels have devoted to the understanding of the nonequilibrium condensation flow physics so far. However, the nonequilibrium condensation can be also generated in the subsonic flows induced by the unsteady expansion waves in shock tube. The major flow physics of the nonequilibrium condensation in this application may be different from those obtained in the supersonic wind tunnels. In the current study, the nonequilibrium condensation phenomenon caused by the unsteady expansion waves in a shock tube is analyzed by using the two-dimensional, unsteady, Navier-Stokes equations, which are fully coupled with a droplet growth equation. The third-order TVD MUSCL scheme is applied to solve the governing equation systems. The computational results are compared with the previous experimental data. The time-dependent behavior of nonequilibrium condensation of moist air in shock tube is investigated in details. The results show that the major characteristics of the nonequilibrium condensation phenomenon in shock tube are very different from those in the supersonic wind tunnels.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.16 no.12
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• pp.8608-8615
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• 2015

We developed a system that can collect and transmit real-time environmental data such as temperature, humidity, wind direction, and wind speed, and equipment performing aging tests on fire detectors. This system was installed in three representative sites of railway tunnels in South Korea such as Gumjung, Solan, Seoul Subway Line 4 tunnels. The systems showed a stable performance and collected environmental data for over a year. We analyzed environmental data collected by two of our developed systems installed in the running tunnels of Gwacheon Line of Seoul Subway Line 4. The developed system was capable of safely analyzing tunnel environments for 24 h straight using a wireless communication network, and has potential for use in a variety of fields other than tunnels.

• Journal of computational fluids engineering
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.60-68
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• 2005

For study on the unsteady wall interference effect, flows around a forced oscillating airfoil in closed test-section wind tunnels have been numerically investigated by solving compressible Navier-Stokes equations. The numerical scheme is based on a node-based finite-volume method with the Roe's flux-difference splitting and an implicit time-integration method coupled with dual time-step sub-iteration. The Spalart-Allmaras one-equation model is employed for the turbulence effect. The computed results of the oscillating airfoil having a thin wake showed that the lift curve slope is increased and the magnitude of hysteresis loop is reduced by the interference effects. Since the vortex around the airfoil is generated and convected downstream faster than the free-air condition, the phase of lift, drag and pitching moment coefficients was shifted. The pressure on the test section wall shows harmonic terms having the oscillating frequency contained in the wail effect.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.393-403
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• 2021

A comprehensive knowledge of the wind flow in hilly terrains is of great interest in many engineering applications, be it wind energy distribution for suitable site selection for wind farms, pollution dispersion, forest fire propagation or agrometerological studies. Several researchers have shown that wind flow over a hilly terrain may be significantly different when compared with the wind flow over a flat terrain. Complex hilly terrains may alter the wind speed to a great extent. Therefore, this effect of terrain must be properly assessed by designers and planners to arrive at a proper wind flow distribution. This paper reviews the work done in this area over the past three decades. Wind flow over two-dimensional hills and two-dimensional escarpments investigated in wind tunnels by various researchers is presented in this paper.