Validation of CFD simulations on the wind loads for tall buildings' preliminary design

This paper investigates the appropriateness of the CFD simulation on the design wind loads of a tall building in the preliminary design stage. An isolated 85-story building was selected for this purpose. CFD study was carried out to evaluate structural design wind loads. During the numerical simulation, the V2F turbulence model and commercial CFD software, STAR-CD, was used for the numerical simulation. In order to validate the CFD results, wind tunnel test was performed. This investigation indicates that the CFD technique can be used to predict the mean wind load of an isolated tall building with reasonable accuracy, collaborated with gust response factor would then be suitable for the purpose of preliminary building design.