VOLUME-FRACTION TECHNIQUES - POWERFUL TOOLS FOR WIND ENGINEERING

In this presentation we summarize the foundation and practical details of fractional-volume modeling methods. In particular, we shall demons trate that these methods offer powerful computational approaches to a variety of physical phenomena in wind engineering. Use of volume-fract ion methods is efficient because they typically require much less comp uter memory and less computational time than other techniques for mode ling geometries. To be effective, however, these methods need to be su pplemented with special considerations for boundary conditions and for numerical stability. A variety of examples will be used to demonstrat e how fractional area/volume methods work.