Large eddy simulation of vortex shedding from cubic obstacle

This paper discusses the large eddy simulation technique as applied to vort ex shedding from a cubic obstacle placed in a turbulent wind environment an d presents results from a recent large-scale computation of this flow. The simulation was sufficiently resolved to capture the dynamics of the conical vortices on the roof of the obstacle and to predict the roof pressure foot print in good agreement with the experimental findings. The 3D visualizatio ns of the vortex shedding and an analysis of the mean flow topology are als o presented. The computations used a grid of similar to 10(7) nodes, and th ey were performed on a Gray T3E parallel machine. The turbulent inflow was taken from a separate precursor simulation targeted so that the obstacle re presents a building placed in an urban wind environment.