Image: Blocken et al.

(2012)

Prof.dr.ir. Bert Blocken

MODULE QUESTION
Which statement is correct?
A) Aerodynamic roughness length and roughness height are about the same
B) Aerodynamic roughness length is about one order of magnitude larger than
roughness height
C) Aerodynamic roughness length is about one order of magnitude smaller than
roughness height
LEARNING OUTCOMES FOR MODULE 7

At the end of this module, you will:

• Understand best practice guidelines in CFD
Best practice guidelines (non complete list)
2000: ERCOFTAC Best Practice Guidelines (Casey & Wintergerste 2000)
2004: COST C14 Guidelines for pedestrian-level wind conditions (Franke et al. 2004)
2007: COST 732 Best Practice Guideline for the CFD simulation of flows in the urban
environment (Franke et al. 2007)
2007: COST 732 Model Evaluation Guidance and Protocol Document
(Britter & Schatzmann 2007)
2008: AIJ Guidelines for practical applications of CFD to pedestrian wind
environment around buildings (Tominaga et al. 2008)
2008: AIJ Guidelines for numerical prediction of wind loads on buildings
(Tamura et al. 2008)
2012: Ten iterative steps for model development and evaluation applied to CFD
for Environmental Fluid Mechanics (Blocken & Gualtieri 2012)
 Based on “Ten-steps” paper by Jakeman et al. (2006)
Best practice guidelines (non complete list)
1994: Roache PJ. Perpective – a method for uniform reporting of grid refinement studies.
Journal of Fluids Engineering – Transactions of the ASME, 116, 3, 405-413.
1997: Roache PJ. Quantification of uncertainty in computational fluid dynamics. Annual
Reviews in Fluid Mechanics, 29, 123-160.
1998: Guide for the verification and validation of computational fluid dynamics simulations,
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, AIAA, AIAA-G-077-1998,
Reston.
2004: Oberkampf et al. Verification, validation, and predictive capability in computational
engineering and physics. Applied Mechanics Reviews, 57 (5), 345 - 384.
2005: Roy CJ. Review of code and solution verification procedures for computational
simulation. Journal of Computational Physics 205, 1, 131-156.
2009: Standard for verification and validation in Computational Fluid Dynamics and heat
transfer. ASME V&V 20-2009, American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
2010: Roy CJ, Oberkampf WL. A complete framework for verification, validation, and
uncertainty quantification in scientific computing. 48th AIAA Aerospace Sciences
Meeting Incl. …, 4 - 7 January 2010, Orlando, Florida.
Computational geometry
Neglecting details when deemed unimportant
Size of the computational domain: guidelines for domain size
Influence on calculation results should be limited  domain size sufficiently large

Guidelines for domain size

1. Minimimum distances between building models and domain boundaries
2. Maximum allowed blockage ratio
Size of the computational domain: guidelines for domain size

1. Minimimum distances between

building models and domain boundaries
(Hall 1997, Franke et al. 2004, 2007,
Tominaga et al. 2008)

Franke et al. (2004)

2. Maximum allowed blockage ratio

(e.g. Baetke et al. 1997, Franke et al. 2007,
Tominaga et al. 2008)
Size of the computational domain: guidelines for domain size

2. Maximum allowed blockage ratio

(e.g. Baetke et al. 1997, Franke et al. 2007,
Tominaga et al. 2008)

3. Directional blockage ratio

(Blocken & Carmeliet 2004)
Grid quality: cell types
Different types of control volumes or cells can be used:
Grid quality: cell shapes
General guideline: try to avoid extreme distortion of cells: e.g. angles > 90° for triangles
especially in areas of large flow gradients (truncation errors / convergence behavior).
Grid quality: grid stretching/compression
General guideline: keep the expansion ratio lower than 1.3 (sometimes 1.2), especially in
the regions of interest (large flow gradients). For LES, this is more critical, and 1.05 or 1.1
might be needed.
Grid quality: cell type distribution
First gridlines near the wall should preferably be parallel/perpendicular to the wall: use
quadrilateral, hexahedral or prism/wedge cells (truncation errors, wall functions)
Grid quality: grid resolution
- Resolution should be higher in regions where large flow gradients are expected
- Resolution should be higher in regions of interest
- For each building: at least 10 cells along length, width and height
- For passages between buildings in region of interest: at least 10 cells across passage

min. 10 cells
Discretization schemes
At least second order schemes should be used.
e.g., ASME Journal of Fluids Engineering does not publish results obtained with first-order
approximations!
Second-order schemes will more easily lead to divergence than first-order schemes
- especially for less quality grids
- sometimes: use first-order solution as initialization for second-order calculations
Discretization schemes
For Building Aerodynamics: convergence with second-order schemes is no problem if the
grid is of high quality. This includes avoiding tetrahedral and pyramid cells, which is
possible even for very complex geometries!

(Blocken, Janssen, van Hooff 2012)

Discretization schemes
For Building Aerodynamics: convergence with second-order schemes is no problem if the
grid is of high quality. This includes avoiding tetrahedral and pyramid cells, which is
possible even for very complex geometries!

(van Hooff & Blocken 2010)

Discretization schemes
Explanation of efficient high-quality grid generation procedure: see
Boundary conditions
- Representation of real boundaries (e.g. building surfaces, ground surface)
- Representation of reality beyond finite computational domain (cut-off)
Boundary conditions
Important problem in CFD studies of ABL flow with commercial CFD codes:
“horizontal inhomogeneity” with the implemented wall functions (Blocken et al. 2007)
Boundary conditions
Important problem in CFD studies of ABL flow with commercial CFD codes:
“horizontal inhomogeneity” with the implemented wall functions (Blocken et al. 2007)

outlet plane

incident flow

approach flow
downstream part of
computational
inlet flow domain

central part of
computational
domain

upstream part of Blocken B, Stathopoulos T, Carmeliet J. 2007. CFD simulation

computational
domain of the Atmospheric Boundary Layer – wall function problems.
inlet plane
Atmospheric Environment 41(2): 238-252.
Boundary conditions
Important problem in CFD studies of ABL flow with commercial CFD codes:
“horizontal inhomogeneity” with the implemented wall functions (Blocken et al. 2007)

outlet plane

incident flow

approach flow
downstream part of
computational
inlet flow domain

central part of
computational
domain

upstream part of Blocken B, Stathopoulos T, Carmeliet J. 2007. CFD simulation

computational
domain of the Atmospheric Boundary Layer – wall function problems.
inlet plane
Atmospheric Environment 41(2): 238-252.
 Boundary conditions
Important problem in CFD studies of ABL flow with commercial CFD codes:
“horizontal inhomogeneity” with the implemented wall functions (Blocken et al. 2007)
Problem = occurrence of unintended streamwise gradients in the approach flow
(horizontal inhomogeneity)

y y
x x
U Iu
Observations of unintended
streamwise gradients:
Richards and Younis (1990), Zhang
(1994), Quinn et al. (2001), Miles and
Westbury (2003), Franke et al. (2004),
Blocken (2004), Franke and Frank
(2005) and Blocken and Carmeliet
(2006)
Boundary conditions: Sensitivity of flow results to incident flow profiles
y

D
x

z
Boundary conditions: Sensitivity of flow results to incident flow profiles
Boundary conditions: Wall function roughness modifications

Most commercial CFD codes were established for mechanical engineering problems
rather than for atmospheric flow problems.
Wall function roughness modifications based on semi-empirical information for sand-grain
roughened pipes and channels (Nikuradse 1933).

kS
Boundary conditions: Wall function roughness modifications

Most commercial CFD codes were established for mechanical engineering problems
rather than for atmospheric flow problems.
Wall function roughness modifications based on semi-empirical information for sand-grain
roughened pipes and channels (Nikuradse 1933).
Small-scale roughness (expressed by equivalent sand-grain roughness height kS)

Atmospheric flows: large-scale roughness (expressed by aerodyn. roughness length y0)

Many commercial CFD codes (incl. ANSYS/Fluent) provide only the first type of roughness
modification.
Boundary conditions: Inlet profiles and wall function roughness modifications
Required: knowing the relationship between kS and y0
50
y0 = aerodynamic roughness length
(classification by Davenport/Wieringa 1992)
40

height above ground (m)

yYo0 = 0.0002 m
yYo0 = 0.005 m
30 yYo0 = 0.03 m
*
u ABL  y  y0  yYo0 = 0.10 m
U(y)  ln  yYo0 = 0.25 m
yYo0 = 0.50 m
κ  y0 
20
y0
yYo0 = 1.0 m
yYo0 = 2.0 m
10

0
0 2 4 6 8 10
horizontal wind speed (m/s)
Boundary conditions: Inlet profiles and wall function roughness modifications
Required: knowing the relationship between kS and y0

y0 = aerodynamic roughness length (classification by Davenport/Wieringa 1992)

y0 (m) Landscape description
1 0.0002 Open sea or lake (irrespective of the wave size), tidal flat, snow-covered flat
Sea plain, featureless desert, tarmac, concrete, with a free fetch of several
kilometres.
2 0.005 Featureless land surface without any noticeable obstacles and with negligible
Smooth vegetation; e.g. beaches, pack ice without large ridges, morass, and snow-
covered or fallow open country.
3 0.03 Level country with low vegetation (e.g. grass) and isolated obstacles with
Open separations of at least 50 obstacle heights; e.g. grazing land without
windbreaks, heather, moor and tundra, runway area of airports.
4 0.10 Cultivated area with regular cover of low crops, or moderately open country
Roughly with occasional obstacles (e.g. low hedges, single rows of trees, isolated
open farms) at relative horizontal distances of at least 20 obstacle heights.
5 0.25 Recently-developed “young” landscape with high crops or crops of varying
Rough height, and scattered obstacles (e.g. dense shelterbelts, vineyards) at relative
distances of about 15 obstacle heights.
6 0.50 “Old” cultivated landscape with many rather large obstacle groups (large
Very farms, clumps of forest) separated by open spaces of about 10 obstacle
rough heights. Also low large vegetation with small interspaces such as bush land,
orchards, young densely-planted forest.
7 1.0 Landscape totally and quite regularly covered with similar-size large
Closed obstacles, with open spaces comparable to the obstacle heights; e.g. mature
regular forests, homogeneous cities or villages.
8  2.0 Centres of large towns with mixture of low-rise and high-rise buildings. Also
Chaotic irregular large forests with many clearings.
Boundary conditions: Inlet profiles and wall function roughness modifications
Required: knowing the relationship between kS and y0

kS = equivalent sand-grain roughness height of the earth surface

Derivation can be found in:
Boundary conditions: Inlet profiles and wall function roughness modifications
Required: knowing the relationship between kS and y0

First-order continuity between ABL log law (based on y0) and wall function (based on
kS):
MODULE QUESTION
Which statement is correct?
A) Aerodynamic roughness length and roughness height are about the same
B) Aerodynamic roughness length is about one order of magnitude larger than
roughness height
C) Aerodynamic roughness length is about one order of magnitude smaller than
roughness height

where CS  0.5
In this module, we have learned about:
• Best practice guidelines in CFD
In the next module, we will focus on:
• What Computational Wind Engineering (CWE) entails.
• Why CWE is more complex than the routine application of CFD in aeronautics.
• Some main concerns in CWE such as verification and validation and specifying
appropriate boundary conditions.
Image: Blocken et al. (2012)

Prof.dr.ir. Bert Blocken