TY - JOUR
T1 - Evaluating a combined WRF and CityFFD method for calculating urban wind distributions
AU - Wang, Jue
AU - Wang, Liangzhu (Leon)
AU - You, Ruoyu
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by Theme-based Research Scheme (Grant No. 22-504/21-R ) from Research Grants Council of Hong Kong SAR, China, and the Research Institute for Sustainable Urban Development (RISUD). The authors would like to thank Dr. Mohammad Mortezazadeh and Mr. Jiwei Zou for their help in the use of the CityFFD.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2023/4/15
Y1 - 2023/4/15
N2 - Inflow boundary conditions are critical for simulating urban wind fields by CFD methods, and wind profiles within the atmospheric boundary layer are significantly affected by local atmosphere circulation and diurnal variation. The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model is a powerful mesoscale weather prediction model that can be used to provide more realistic inflow boundary conditions. To investigate the potential of a combined WRF and CityFFD method (WRF-CityFFD), this study first validated the WRF and CityFFD models and then used the validated models in WRF-CityFFD to calculate the wind distribution in the Kowloon district of Hong Kong within an area of 3.5 km × 2.4 km. The wind speed data at two weather stations were used as a benchmark, and CityFFD with inflow boundary conditions from a semi-empirical method (semi-empirical-CityFFD) was also investigated for comparison. The WRF-CityFFD performed better than the semi-empirical-CityFFD in calculating wind velocities in urban microclimates. The power-law exponent for wind profiles should be carefully defined when conducting CFD simulations for complex urban layouts. Coastal areas with onshore wind conditions were more suitable for selection as inflow boundary conditions for WRF-CityFFD.
AB - Inflow boundary conditions are critical for simulating urban wind fields by CFD methods, and wind profiles within the atmospheric boundary layer are significantly affected by local atmosphere circulation and diurnal variation. The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model is a powerful mesoscale weather prediction model that can be used to provide more realistic inflow boundary conditions. To investigate the potential of a combined WRF and CityFFD method (WRF-CityFFD), this study first validated the WRF and CityFFD models and then used the validated models in WRF-CityFFD to calculate the wind distribution in the Kowloon district of Hong Kong within an area of 3.5 km × 2.4 km. The wind speed data at two weather stations were used as a benchmark, and CityFFD with inflow boundary conditions from a semi-empirical method (semi-empirical-CityFFD) was also investigated for comparison. The WRF-CityFFD performed better than the semi-empirical-CityFFD in calculating wind velocities in urban microclimates. The power-law exponent for wind profiles should be carefully defined when conducting CFD simulations for complex urban layouts. Coastal areas with onshore wind conditions were more suitable for selection as inflow boundary conditions for WRF-CityFFD.
KW - Fast fluid dynamics
KW - Multiscale
KW - Power-law wind profile
KW - Urban wind distribution
KW - Weather research and forecasting
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85150464103&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.buildenv.2023.110205
DO - 10.1016/j.buildenv.2023.110205
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85150464103
SN - 0360-1323
VL - 234
JO - Building and Environment
JF - Building and Environment
M1 - 110205
ER -