Large-eddy simulation of flow around an isolated building: A step-by-step analysis of influencing factors on turbulent statistics

Abstract We designed and exclusively performed a wind tunnel experiment to obtain high-quality and high-resolution measurement results for three components of mean and fluctuating velocities around a 1: 1: 2 isolated building to establish a benchmark case for large-eddy simulation (LES) as a part of the activities of the Architectural Institute of Japan. Subsequently, we conducted LES to investigate the effect of computational grid arrangement on turbulent statistics by changing three grid arrangements. Finally, we performed a comparison by changing sub-grid scale (SGS) turbulence models, spatial discretization schemes, and convergence criteria. A grid in which the width of a building was discretized into 20 grids yielded sufficient resolution to reproduce the mean flow and second-order turbulent statistics. Under this grid arrangement, the blending ratio of first-order upwind schemes from 5–10%, i.e., the appropriate second-order statistics of wind velocity around the isolated building, was obtained and numerical oscillation was effectively removed. Then, with the grid, any SGS model yielded appropriate results. In addition, the convergence criteria have little effects on the LES results if stable solution is obtained. Because the convergence criteria greatly affect the total calculation cost, weaker appropriate criteria should be set.

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