Analyzing the Impact of Building Wind in Coastal Areas

Abstract

Kwon, Y.; Kim, J., and Kwon, S., 2021. Analyzing the impact of building wind in coastal areas. In: Lee, J.L.; Suh, K.S.; Lee, B.; Shin, S., and Lee, J. (eds.), Crisis and Integrated Management for Coastal and Marine Safety. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 114, pp. 266–270. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. Building wind causes a large amount of damage in coastal cities, where high-rise buildings are, typically, densely constructed. This paper describes the effects of building wind on coastal cities with a high concentration of highrise buildings under extreme weather conditions such as during typhoons. We performed simulations involving four wind directions (east, west, south, and north) at two sites, i.e., Marine City and LCT, which are well known as representative coastal urban areas in Busan, South Korea, with concentrated areas of high-rise buildings. We used a computational fluid dynamics program; a user-defined function was employed to simulate the wind environment during a typhoon. A contour analysis of the wind velocity indicated that the overall wind speeds increased by a factor of approximately two or more compared with the inflow data (25 m/s) when the wind passed between high-rise buildings. Generally, among the four wind directions, wind speeds were significantly enhanced when the north wind blew over both Marine City and LCT. The highest wind speed was observed at LCT when the west wind blew; however, the value was considerably local, with a significantly small contour area. Interestingly, the highest wind speed with a considerably local contour was observed near the tallest highrise building, supporting the hypothesis that wind speed increases rapidly downwind from the tallest building. As the height of the building increased, the downwind effect became stronger.