Numerical Study of Wind Flow Behavior Around High-Rise Buildings Using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)

Abstract

The development of civil construction technology in Indonesia is progressing along with the rise in high-rise building construction. The emergence of high-rise buildings has altered wind flow characteristics, leading to phenomena that can directly impact surrounding structures. One of the observable phenomena is the wind speed amplification caused by the narrowing of the wind flow section, known as the Venturi effect. This study aims to compare the outcomes of two Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) methods—Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) and Large Eddy Simulation (LES)—against experimental results. The study employs a model of four buildings of similar height and symmetrical positioning, with a 72 mm passage width, to verify numerical simulations against experimental data. The RANS method yields a maximum wind speed amplification of 14.9% along the passage's centerline, which remains below the experimental prediction of 25.5% in Zone A. Conversely, the LES results show a higher wind speed amplification, reaching 40.2%, surpassing the experimental findings. Nevertheless, LES identifies a similar location for wind speed amplification observed in Zone A. Additionally, CFD simulations were conducted to analyze the effects of passage width, revealing that a passage width of 54 mm produces the highest wind speed amplification, with a ratio value of passage width to building influence scale (L/S) of 0.481. Further research on building model scale may be necessary to verify CFD accuracy compared to the actual scale. However, such simulations demand exceedingly high computational resources with current technology.