Simulation of permeable surfaces using the pressure–velocity jump approach: A lamellar screen upstream of a ground-mounted obstacle

Abstract

Permeable surfaces are nowadays widely adopted in the construction industry, with applications ranging from wind shields for bridge decks to the external layer of permeable double skin facades. However, due to the large scale separation between the overall structure dimension and the size of the pores, their modelling in CFD simulations is still extremely challenging and over-simplified homogenized models are often used in practice. Inspired by previous studies, the authors recently proposed a generalization of the well-known pressure-jump approach which accounts for flow deflections, denoted as pressure–velocity jump, PVJ. In this study, the derivation of the PVJ approach is briefly recalled and contextualized in the existing literature. Then, we use PVJ to study the influence of a lamellar screen positioned upstream of a ground-mounted obstacle using 2D URANS. In particular, simulations are performed using the proposed PVJ approach and Explicit Models, EM, in which lamellae are explicitly modelled, for square and a rectangular obstacles. Results show a good agreement between EM and PVJ based models, confirming the high potential of the proposed technique.