CFD Study of Pressure Distribution on Recessed Faces of a Diamond C-Shaped Building

Abstract

A building situated in the flow path of the wind is subjected to differential velocity and pressure distribution around the envelope. Wind effects are influenced by and vary for each individual shape of a tall building. Tall building structures are considered as cantilever structures with fixed ends at the ground. Wind velocity acting along the height of the building makes the velocity and pressure distribution more complex; as the height of the building structure increases, wind velocity increases. This study discusses the effect of the wind on an irregular cross-section shape. The present study was conducted numerically with a building model placed in a virtual wind tunnel using the ANSYS (CFX 2020 Academic Version) software tool. Wind effects are investigated on a building model situated in a terrain category-II defined in IS: 875 (Part 3): 2015; wind scale model of 1:100 and turbulence intensity are at 5% and power law index α is considered to be 0.143. The validation and verification of the study were made by comparing pressure coefficients on different faces of a rectangular model of similar floor area and height as that taken for a C-plan dia-mond-shaped model under similar boundary conditions, wind environment, and solver setting of numerical setups. The values of surface pressures generated on the recessed faces of the model and wind flow patterns within the recessed cavity were studied at wind incident angles 0°, 30°, 60°, 105°, 135°, and 180°. The critical suction on all the recessed faces was observed to be at a 105° angle of wind attack.