Modeling the Effects of Warm Buildings on Fluid Flow in Cities

Abstract

This research seeks to understand how heat transferred from warm buildings effects the fluid flow in cities. The motivation for this research is to understand how this alteration in flow would affect particle dispersion in cities. The goal for this research is to effectively use computational fluid dynamics to model test cases. With the data obtained, project collaborators will be able to design experiments to validate the outcomes of the simulations done using Star CCM+. Initial results showed that a simplified building with a high thermal conductivity was capable of transferring a substantial amount of heat to the fluid flowing past it. Further analysis remains to be done to quantify the effect of this heat on the fluid flow. The remainder of this research will focus on quantifying the effects of heat transfer as well as exploring and simulating more complex buildings and arrangements.