Urban microclimate strongly depends on local wind conditions, which are influenced by buildings and other structures so that they can sensibly differ from those measured at meteorological stations (typically located near airports or in other scarcely built areas).
Wind speed and turbulence can become uncomfortable or even dangerous due to the interaction with buildings and structures. In order to predict this, historical meteorological data can be used to perform Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation of flows in urban areas and assess the local wind conditions and their probability.
Several well-established criteria exist to characterise local wind comfort and safety, in particular for pedestrians, and assess the usability of each outdoor area for a specific activity, such as sitting, walking or biking. Among them, the Lawson criterion and the Dutch NEN8100 standard are the most commonly used.
BuildWind can perform accurate simulation of flow around buildings and in urban areas and assess the level of pedestrian wind comfort and safety in a city by using any of the available criteria. We create high-fidelity computational meshes including details as small as 1 cm on building façades and with a total cell number typically between 10 and 100 million. We apply the best available techniques and most widely recognized guidelines for building aerodynamics simulation, include when necessary the terrain orography and the presence of vegetation.
In case critical areas are identified by our analysis, we can propose strategy to mitigate risk and increase comfort.
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Company Link: www.buildwind.net
E-mail: gambale@buildwind.net
Contact Phone: +32 486 47 39 20
