High-speed GSMAC-FEM for wind engineering

Abstract

A stable and cost-efficient finite element formulation, the high-speed GSMAC-FEM (generalized simplified marker and cell finite element method) for unsteady incompressible viscous flow analysis is developed. In this paper, the high-speed GSMAC-FEM with the differential stress turbulence model, which includes curve effect in Rotta's term as a pressure-strain correlation, is identified by computing the channel flow and the flow over a backward-facing step. Then, the superiority of the differential stress model to the kt-e turbulence model for the prediction of the pressure distributions on a building in a turbulent stream is demonstrated.