CHARACTERIZATION OF A LOW-SPEED WIND TUNNEL SIMULATING URBAN ATMOSPHERES

Abstract

A new low-speed boundary-layer wind tunnel has been designed and constructed at the University of Assiut. A series of flow-characteristic evaluations were performed in this wind tunnel to determine the uniformity of flow and to verify its adequacy to simulate the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) for environmental flow studies and pollutants dispersion in urban atmospheres. This paper presents the measurements of mean velocity and turbulence intensity distributions in the wind tunnel. The measurements showed uniform velocity distributions and low turbulence intensities at the entrance of boundary development section in the empty wind tunnel. The simulated ABL at the entrance of the test section using the Irwin's method that consists of a combination of spires and roughness elements has a thickness up to 500 m corresponding to urban area. The results show that the present wind tunnel is capable to maintain long run steady flow characteristics and reproducible flow patterns. In addition, the capability of the wind tunnel to simulate the flow in the urban area atmospheres is verified by comparing the measured mean velocity and turbulence intensity distributions against its counterparts obtained from Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) which employ two-equation k-e turbulence model around and above buildings model. The numerical results agree well with the experimental data.