Calculations of the wind-induced pressure distribution on a model building

Abstract

In the calculation of smoke flow within a building, or of smoke ingress into a building surrounded by smoke, the effect of wind is very important, The wind flow sets up pressure variations around the building which play an important role in determining the flow within the building and the rate of ingress of external smoke. This paper contains some results from the calculation of the pressure distribution around the surface of an obstacle that represents a model building. The calculations have been performed using the computational fluid dynamics model FLOW3D and are part of a validation exercise for the application of the code to smoke movement problems. Data from experiments in which a model building was placed in a wind tunnel to study smoke ingress, have been compared with those from the simulations. The calculated results are found to be in excellent qualitative and good quantitative agreement with the experimental data.