Spectral-Element Simulation of the Turbulent Flow in an Urban Environment

The mean flow and turbulence statistics of the flow through a simplified urban environment, which is an active research area in order to improve the knowledge of turbulent flow in cities, is investigated. This is useful for civil engineering, pedestrian comfort and for health concerns caused by poll...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Applied sciences 2021-07, Vol.11 (14), p.6472
Main Authors: Stuck, Maxime, Vidal, Alvaro, Torres, Pablo, Nagib, Hassan M., Wark, Candace, Vinuesa, Ricardo
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Atmospheric boundary layer
Civil engineering
Environmental statistics
Flow characteristics
Fluid dynamics
Fluid flow
Horseshoe vortices
Large eddy simulation
Numerical analysis
Outdoor air quality
Pollutants
Reynolds number
Simulation
Statistical analysis
Statistics
Turbulence
Turbulent flow
Urban areas
Urban environments
urban flows
Velocity
well-resolved large-eddy simulations
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Summary:The mean flow and turbulence statistics of the flow through a simplified urban environment, which is an active research area in order to improve the knowledge of turbulent flow in cities, is investigated. This is useful for civil engineering, pedestrian comfort and for health concerns caused by pollutant spreading. In this work, we provide analysis of the turbulence statistics obtained from well-resolved large-eddy simulations (LES). A detailed analysis of this database reveals the impact of the geometry of the urban array on the flow characteristics and provides for a good description of the turbulent features of the flow within a simplified urban environment. The most prominent features of this complex flow include coherent vortical structures such as the so-called arch vortex, the horseshoe vortex and the roof vortex. These structures of flow have been identified by an analysis of the turbulence statistics. The influence of the geometry of urban environment (and particularly the street width and the building height) on the overall flow behavior has also been studied. Finally, the well-resolved LES results were compared with an available experimental database to discuss differences and similarities between the respective urban configurations.
ISSN:2076-3417
2076-3417
DOI:10.3390/app11146472