Verifying urban canopy parameterization effects in a mesoscale model with wind tunnel data

<p>Airflow within and above urban canopy layers are modelled by different approaches in a wind tunnel and in a numerical mesoscale model. For the experimental approaches in the wind tunnel, the combination of spires, roughness elements and a physical model generates a scaled boundary layer flow with velocity and turbulence characteristics that are consistent with microscale urban canopy flows in reality. A wind tunnel is comparable in resolution with an obstacle resolving microscale model, therefore data comparisons are frequently done for this scale. However, for many applications numerical models of 1 km resolution are used, resolving mesoscale atmospheric phenomena but not microscale ones. Parameterizations are then used to represent physical processes and obstacle influences on the atmospheres. Due to the coarse resolution, a direct comparison of mesoscale model results and wind tunnel is difficult.</p> <p>In this study, we use wind tunnel data as validation datasets to evaluate the urban canopy parameterization effects on airflow in a mesoscale model. We have developed a multi-layer urban canopy parameterization using nudging, implemented in the atmospheric model METRAS. The extended model is tested in an idealized case, in which the model domain is designed using realistic topographical data for the Hamburg city center but not resolving buildings. To simplify the city structure, two important canopy morphological parameters are used: building surface fraction and building height. Experiments with a similar model configuration were carried out in parallel in the Blasius wind tunnel facility of the Environmental Wind-Tunnel Laboratory of the University of Hamburg at a model scale of 1:500. Based on the realistic building surface fraction and building height, a pyramid-like model for the urban canopy is placed in the wind tunnel. The set-ups of the numerical model runs and the wind tunnel experiments are designed following two principles: first, keeping the set-up in both approaches as equivalent as possible, in terms of meteorological conditions, roughness lengths, simulation durations, etc.; secondly, taking into account the limitations of the microscale wind tunnel datasets and keeping as many characteristics of atmospheric processes as possible.</p> <p>The METRAS results show a good agreement with the wind tunnel datasets, in terms of representing building effects such as the reduction of mean wind speeds in the building wake, enhanced turbulence intensities and turbulent fluctuation characteristics for a sufficiently fine scale. However, for coarser resolution, the result comparability reduces and the agreement is less. Thus, we conclude that sub-grid scale canopy effects can be parameterized sufficiently well for their impacts on the average flow, but any detailed changes can only be simulated with a sufficiently high resolution.</p>

Numerical investigations of vortex formation on a generic multiple-swept-wing configuration

For an improvement of the flight stability characteristics of high-agility aircraft, the comprehension of the vortex development, behavior and break down is important. Therefore, numerical investigations on low aspect ratio, multiple-swept-wing configurations are performed in this study to analyze the influence of the numerical method on the vortex formation. The discussed configurations are based on a triple- and double-delta wing planform. Unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (URANS) simulations and delayed detached eddy simulations (DDES) are performed for both configurations. The simulations are executed at Re $$= 3.0\times 10^6$$ = 3.0 × 10 6 , symmetric freestream conditions, and an angle of attack of $$\alpha = 16^\circ$$ α = 16 ∘ , for consistency with reference wind tunnel data. For the triple-delta-wing configuration, the results of the DDES show a satisfying accordance to the experiments compared to URANS, especially for the flow field and the pitching moment coefficient. For the double-delta-wing configuration, the URANS simulation provides reliable results with low deviation of the aerodynamic coefficients and high precision for the flow field development with respect to the experimental data.

Review on Ship Manoeuvrability Criteria and Standards

Possible reduction of the installed power on newly designed merchant ships triggered by requirements of the Energy Efficiency Design Indices (EEDI) raised concern in possible safety degradation and revived interest in manoeuvrability standards to make them capable to compensate for negative effects of underpowering. A substantial part of the present article presents a detailed analytical review of general principles laid in the foundation of consistent safety standards in the naval architecture and analysis of the existing IMO manoeuvrability criteria and standards. Possible ways of extension of the existing standards to embrace situations associated with adverse sea and wind conditions are discussed and modification of the present standards related to the directional stability is considered as one of the possible solutions. At the same time, it was found that introduction of additional standards for the ship controllability in wind is justified, and the second part of the contribution is dedicated to developing a theoretical basis useful for devising such standards. This includes obtaining a set of analytical solutions related to the steady motion in wind and analysis of wind-tunnel data which resulted in simple equations for conservative generalized envelopes for the aerodynamic forces which are especially convenient for standardizing purposes. Possible design decisions aimed at augmentation of the ship’s capacity to resist adverse environmental factors are outlined.

Aerodynamic Free-Flight Conditions in Wind Tunnel Modelling through Reduced-Order Wall Inserts

Parallel sidewalls are the standard bounding walls in wind tunnels when making a wind tunnel model for free-flight condition. The consequence of confinement in wind tunnel tests, known as wall-interference, is one of the main sources of uncertainty in experimental aerodynamics, limiting the realizability of free-flight conditions. Although this has been an issue when designing transonic wind tunnels and/or in cases with large blockage ratios, even subsonic wind tunnels at low-blockage-ratios might require wall corrections if a good representation of free-flight conditions is intended. In order to avoid the cumbersome streamlining methods especially for subsonic wind tunnels, a sensitivity analysis is conducted in order to investigate the effect of inclined sidewalls as a reduced-order wall insert in the airfoil plane. This problem is investigated via Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) simulations, and a NACA4412 wing at the angles of attack between 0 and 11 degrees at a moderate Reynolds number (400 k) is considered. The simulations are validated with well-resolved large-eddy simulation (LES) results and experimental wind tunnel data. Firstly, the wall-interference contribution in aerodynamic forces, as well as the local pressure coefficients, are assessed. Furthermore, the isolated effect of confinement is analyzed independent of the boundary-layer growth. Secondly, wall-alignment is modified as a calibration parameter in order to reduce wall-interference based on the aforementioned assessment. In the outlined method, we propose the use of linear inserts to account for the effect of wind tunnel walls, which are experimentally simple to realize. The use of these inserts in subsonic wind tunnels with moderate blockage ratio leads to very good agreement between free-flight and wind tunnel data, while this approach benefits from simple manufacturing and experimental realization.

Computational Fluid Dynamics Simulation to Predict the Airflow and Turbulence in a Wind Farm in Open Complex Terrain

The performance of a wind turbine depends on the characteristics of the airflow as well as the conditions of the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL). To evaluate accurately the amount of wind energy, it is required to have the exact height distribution of wind speed for the considered implementation site of a wind turbine. In this paper, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation predictions provided by the standard k-ε turbulence model under neutral conditions were examined. The objective is to investigate the influence of hill slopes in the microscale wind farm on the airflow velocity to optimize the location of wind turbines. The results were validated by RUSHIL wind tunnel data and were compared with flat terrain.