The challenge
With the growing density of people living in big cities, skyscrapers appear to be the perfect solution for providing more space for residential apartments, commercial surfaces and offices. However, the inclusion of such tall buildings in city environments has a strong impact on the wind flow of entire neighbourhoods.
Cafe and restaurant terraces, parks and walking areas, shopping streets etc... that were lovely places to sit, walk and spend time in, might become highly uncomfortable due to the accelerated wind induced by these tall buildings.
NUMFLO solution
NUMFLO has developed a strong expertise in pedestrian wind comfort assessment. With access to very powerful mesh generators, developed by NUMECA, we are able to automatically mesh very complex geometries even entire cities, with a top mesh quality. Wind flows are then analyzed and post-processed by our experts.
By linking our numerical results with meteorological data, a map of pedestrian wind comfort levels is created. Depending on the kind of activities intended for certain areas - walking, sitting, playing,... - the pedestrian wind comfort can be concluded as acceptable or not and modifications of the local infrastructure can be discussed for solving the wind incomfort and finding a better solution.