Buoyant flows in street canyons: Validation of CFD simulations with wind tunnel measurements

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is often used to predict flow structures in urban areas for the determination of pollutant dispersion, human comfort or heat fluxes. During daytime building façades and ground surfaces are heated by solar radiation and thereby induce buoyancy, which changes the flow field around buildings significantly. The CFD models used to simulate buoyant flow fields in urban areas are not sufficiently validated. This study aims to validate CFD simulations for buoyant flows in urban street canyons by comparison with wind tunnel measurements. 2D steady RANS (Reynolds-Averaged Navier–Stokes) CFD simulations were conducted with different near-wall treatments. Velocity, turbulent kinetic energy and temperature profiles from CFD were compared with the measured flow fields (measurement technique: particle image velocimetry). Isothermal cases as well as cases with leeward wall or windward wall heating or all surfaces heated were considered. The results show that CFD can predict the general flow structures and the influence of buoyancy. The detailed flow field inside the street canyon is strongly dependent on the flow structure within the shear layer at the top of the street canyon. Therefore to get accurate results for the flow profiles inside the street canyon, the flow within the shear layer has to be predicted correctly.