NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF THE WIND-INDUCED PRESSURE DISTRIBUTION ON BUILDING SURFACE IN DOWNBURST

To study the wind-induced effect of the downburst on buildings, the analysis of a downburst wind field should be the foundation. At first, a two-dimensional model of the wind field is established based on a wall jet model. Numerical simulation is employed to get the vertical profile of the radial velocity in Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software. Compared the result with three empirical models and a measured distribution of the velocity profile data, it is confirmed that the numerical simulation of the downburst is in good accordance with the theoretical analysis and the practical observations. After that a high-rise building model is put into the computed area in the wind field to simulate the effect of the downburst on the building surface. The CFD software is employed to get the wind-induced pressure distribution. By contrast, the simulation result is consistent with the test results in a multi-fan wind tunnel, and greater than the reference value in the load code for the design. This should be paid more attention in the practical engineering of the downburst-prone areas.