Numerical Simulation of Wind Flow over Complex Terrain of Yangon City

Abstract

To get an economical and safe design structures in design process, this study investigate how to change vertical wind profile depends on surface roughness over the terrain. Nowadays, the concern of wind engineering is increasing among Myanmar engineers because of increasing damages due to the frequent occurrence of natural disasters and construction of many tall and modernized buildings in the city centers, which are more susceptible to wind loads. Wind direction and vertical wind speed profile are sensitively influenced by local topography. These factors connect directly with wind loading and buffeting response of buildings. It is very important to find out the vertical wind speed profile and other characteristics of the wind velocity. However, predicting and properly assessing the wind flow over or around obstacles is a difficult and expensive process when using the experimental approach. In this study, the computations are performed in OpenFOAM (Open Field Operation and Manipulation) Computational Fluid Dynamics Toolbox and the turbulence is modeled by using Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) models mainly k-epsilon (k-ε) for cases.