Study on Accuracy of CFD Simulations of Wind Environment around High-Rise Buildings: A Comparative Study of k-epsilon Turbulence Models Based on Polyhedral Meshes and Wind Tunnel Experiments

It is important to create a comfortable wind environment around high-rise buildings for outdoor activities. To predict the wind environment, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) has been widely used by designers and engineers. However, the simulation results of different CFD turbulence models might significantly vary. This paper researched the wind environment around a typical high-rise building and verified the accuracy of the CFD simulations based on polyhedral meshes. The differences between the simulation results of the k-ε turbulence models and those of the wind tunnel experiments were compared from the perspectives of wind speed and turbulence energy. The results show that the modified k-ε models could still not perfectly match the wind tunnel experiment results. Specifically, in the low-wind-speed areas, the simulation results of the Realizable Two-Layer K-Epsilon (RTLKE) model were the closest to the experimental results of the wind tunnels, while in the high-wind-speed areas the simulation results of the Standard Two-Layer K-Epsilon (STLKE) model were the closest to the experimental results of the wind tunnels. Therefore, it is recommended that these two k-ε turbulence models are applied under different conditions—the RTLKE model should be used to simulate low-wind areas around high-rise buildings (e.g., defining the size of the static-wind area around high-rise buildings, predicting the diffusion time of pollutants around high-rise buildings, etc.); STLKE should be used to simulate high-wind-speed areas around high-rise buildings (e.g., the high speed wind area around high-rise buildings during a typhoon, the maximum wind speed area around high-rise buildings, etc.). It is expected that findings from this research study supplement some existing high-rise building design guidance.