Generating a wind environment for large eddy simulation of bluff body flows

Large eddy simulations (LES) of turbulent flow past a bluff body placed in a wind environment requires that time-dependent inflow boundary data be gen erated to describe the surrounding wind environment. The important wind par ameters are the Jensen number (or roughness ratio), the turbulence intensit y, the turbulence integral length scale ratio, and the Reynolds number: an LES model with parameters appropriate for a full-scale urban wind environme nt with a roughness scale of 0.3-0.8 m and able to accommodate a building o f 10-20 m height is described in detail, including computed mean velocity p rofile, turbulent intensity profiles, auto-correlation functions and the tu rbulence integral scale, and the turbulence spectra. The Reynolds number is sufficiently large for the flow past the building to be effectively Reynol ds number independent. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.