NUMERICAL STUDY ON RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN RESIDENTIAL BUILDING ARRANGEMENT AND SNOW DISTRIBUTION

A method is developed for simulating snow distribution around buildings considering the effect of snowdrift and heat exchange on the snow surface. This method combines snowdrift simulation using CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) with the heat balance model. Furthermore, it is used to investigate the relationship between residential building arrangement and snow distribution. Little difference was observed in the results for different building arrangements obtained from snowdrift analysis only. However, large differences were observed in the results obtained from combined snowdrift and snowmelt simulations. It is confirmed that snowmelt can be increased by increasing distances between buildings