Comparisons of wind-tunnel and full-scale surface pressure measurements on low-rise pitched-roof buildings

The main results of a two-year project aimed at comparing full-scale tests, wind tunnel tests, and numerical analysis predictions are presented. Pressure measurements were obtained from both full-scale tests and wind-tunnel tests, in upwind and downwind conditions. The upwind wind tunnel test condition was modelled using a Vortex Lattice code, while the downwind wind-tunnel test was modelled using a Navier-Stokes code. The pressures obtained from the three different methods are compared on three horizontal sections of the headsail, mainsail, and asymmetric spinnaker. In general the pressures from the three experiments showed good agreement. In particular, very good agreement was obtained between the numerical computations and the wind tunnel test results. Conversely, the results from the downwind full-scale pressure measurements showed less similarity due to a slightly tightened trim being used for the spinnaker in the on-water tests. Full-scale tests allow the action of unsteadiness due to the wind, wave and yacht movements to affect the results. This unstable environment caused the asymmetric spinnaker to move around, and a tightened trim was required to prevent the spinnaker from collapsing.

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Comparison of RANS and Detached Eddy Simulation Results to Wind-Tunnel Data for the Surface Pressures Upon a Class 43 High-Speed Train

Journal of Fluids Engineering ◽

10.1115/1.4029261 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 137 (4) ◽

Cited By ~ 43

Author(s):

Justin A. Morden ◽

Hassan Hemida ◽

Chris. J. Baker

Keyword(s):

Wind Tunnel ◽

Surface Pressure ◽

High Speed ◽

Model Comparison ◽

Computational Cost ◽

Full Scale ◽

Cost Comparison ◽

Detached Eddy Simulation ◽

Eddy Simulation ◽

Wind Tunnel Data

Currently, there are three different methodologies for evaluating the aerodynamics of trains; full-scale measurements, physical modeling using wind-tunnel, and moving train rigs and numerical modeling using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). Moreover, different approaches and turbulence modeling are normally used within the CFD framework. The work in this paper investigates the consistency of two of these methodologies; the wind-tunnel and the CFD by comparing the measured surface pressure with the computed CFD values. The CFD is based on Reynolds-Averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) turbulence models (five models were used; the Spalart–Allmaras (S–A), k-ε, k-ε re-normalization group (RNG), realizable k-ε, and shear stress transport (SST) k-ω) and two detached eddy simulation (DES) approaches; the standard DES and delayed detached eddy simulation (DDES). This work was carried out as part of a larger project to determine whether the current methods of CFD, model scale and full-scale testing provide consistent results and are able to achieve agreement with each other when used in the measurement of train aerodynamic phenomena. Similar to the wind-tunnel, the CFD approaches were applied to external aerodynamic flow around a 1/25th scale class 43 high-speed tunnel (HST) model. Comparison between the CFD results and wind-tunnel data were conducted using coefficients for surface pressure, measured at the wind-tunnel by pressure taps fitted over the surface of the train in loops. Four different meshes where tested with both the RANS SST k-ω and DDES approaches to form a mesh sensitivity study. The four meshes featured 18, 24, 34, and 52 × 106 cells. A mesh of 34 × 106 cells was found to provide the best balance between accuracy and computational cost. Comparison of the results showed that the DES based approaches; in particular, the DDES approach was best able to replicate the wind-tunnel results within the margin of uncertainty.

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