Boundary layer wind tunnel tests of outdoor airflow field around urban buildings: A review of methods and status

Abstract

Outdoor airflow fields have received increasing attention in the building aerodynamics community due to that the airflow distributions around outdoor buildings are closely related to issues such as thermal comfort, building ventilation, and pollutant dispersion. The focus of this paper is on the airflow distributions around buildings obtained through wind tunnel tests, and such studies are mostly conducted in boundary layer wind tunnel with long test section. This paper reviews current techniques for boundary layer wind tunnel tests of airflow distributions in urban outdoor environments. Then, the characteristics of airflow distributions around buildings in three typical configurations from previous studies (i.e. isolated building, street canyon, and building complexes) are reviewed. This review highlights that the proposed building models should be carefully assessed in combination with wind tunnel tests at the design stage. In addition, it is important to obtain wind tunnel test data for buildings with thermal effects, and the importance of arranging the underlying surfaces during the test is also emphasized.