Date of Graduation

5-2022

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering

Degree Level

Undergraduate

Department

Civil Engineering

Advisor/Mentor

Selvam, R. Panneer

Committee Member/Reader

Fernstrom, Eric

Abstract

Structural engineers design buildings and their components to withstand code-specified wind loads. The ASCE 7-16 manual sets the standards for calculating wind loads in the U.S. Depending on the velocity of wind, deflections may occur as wind passes through the building. The pressure reported from ASCE are based on wind tunnel measurements. The peak pressure from ASCE 7 is much less than what is measured from the field for a low-rise building. As an alternative economic tool, Computer modeling has been developed to help with this dilemma. Methods based on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) are used to calculate velocities and peak pressures of wind. CFD can help visualize the invisible and predict fluid motion. Because of this, CFD has the potential to become a more cost-effective tool; saving time and money (Atencio, 2021).

A CFD program (pb3d2.exe) is used to compute velocities and pressures at every point in the domain. A visualization software (TECPLOT) is then used to visualize the change in u, v, w velocities and pressure in time and space. The behavior of velocity and pressure without a building in the computational domain is investigated. The u-velocity for each timestep is recorded and a frequency vs. time plot is created using a visualization software (MATLAB). Using both visualization software’s, energy cascade is investigated. To investigate energy cascade, symmetric and asymmetric waves vary in grid size, time step, wavelength and amplitude in the x, y, and z directions. These results can help with the development of more efficient inflow turbulence generators without much loss of energy.

Keywords

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD); Turbulence; Energy Cascade; Wave Interactions

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