The Fifth International Symposium on Computational Wind Engineering (CWE2010)

Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA May 23-27, 2010

The Best Practise Guideline for the CFD simulation of flows in

the urban environment : an outcome of COST 732
Jrg FRANKE a, Antti HELLSTEN b, Heinke SCHLNZEN c
and Bertrand CARISSIMO d
a

Department of Fluid- and Thermodynamics, University of Siegen, Germany

E-mail: joerg.franke@uni-siegen.de
b
Department of Applied Mechanics, Helsinki University of Technology, Helsinki, Finland
E-mail: antti.hellsten@tkk.fi
c
Meteorological Institute, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
E-mail: heinke.schluenzen@zmaw.de
d
CEREA, Teaching and Research Centre in Atmospheric Environment, Chatou, France
E-mail: carissim@cerea.enpc.fr

ABSTRACT:
This paper is a summary of the best practice guideline document (Franke et al., 2007) produced
in the framework of the European COST Action 732 Quality assurance and improvement of micro-scale meteorological models, available from the site given in the reference section. The full
document provides guidelines for undertaking simulations that are used to evaluate micro-scale
obstacle-accommodating meteorological models. This paper provides an overview of the topics
covered in the full document without reproducing the specific recommendations. In addition, just
after the end of the action we give a first feedback on the usage made of this guide by the participants.
1 INTRODUCTION
The main objective of the European COST Action 732 was the improvement and quality assurance of micro-scale obstacle-accommodating meteorological models and their application to the
prediction of flow and transport processes in urban or industrial environments (Britter and
Schatzmann, 2007). The name micro-scale obstacle-accommodating meteorological models is
used to discern them from cloud resolving models which are called micro-scale models in meteorology. Micro-scale obstacle-accommodating meteorological models are in the following also
often called Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) codes.
The quality assurance of the application is closely related to the users' knowledge of the models.
Actually, numerical simulation is mainly a knowledge based activity (Hutton, 2005; Coirier,
2005). The knowledge is, in general, most effectively transferred by the formulation of a best
practice guideline (BPG) for the intended application, which is the prediction of dispersion in urban areas at neighbourhood and street scale within this COST Action. However, even for this
well-defined application the formulation of BPGs faces the problem of giving general advice for
specific problems that may vary substantially although belonging to the same field. The BPG of

The Fifth International Symposium on Computational Wind Engineering (CWE2010)

Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA May 23-27, 2010

the COST action 732 (Franke et al., 2007), which is summarised in the following, is therefore
also not exhaustive but tries to cover as many aspects of the proper usage of CFD for the prediction of urban flows as possible.
The full document provides guidelines for undertaking simulations that are used to evaluate CFD
codes. This paper provides only an overview of the topics covered in the full document without
reproducing the specific recommendations. In the full document those sources of error and uncertainty in CFD simulations, that can be controlled and quantified by the user are discussed in detail and best practice guidelines for their reduction and quantification are given. These BPGs are
based on previous available guidelines as far as possible. For topics that have not yet been covered by existing guidelines further needs for research within the COST action 732 are indicated.
The most general discrimination of these errors and uncertainties divides them into two broad
categories (Coleman and Stern, 1997) with corresponding subdivisions.
errors and uncertainties in modelling the physics:
simplification of physical complexity
usage of previous experimental data
geometric boundary conditions
physical boundary conditions
initialisation
numerical errors and uncertainties :
computer programming
computer round-off
spatial discretisation
temporal discretisation
iterative convergence
When performing validation simulations it is mandatory to quantify and reduce the different errors and uncertainties originating from these sources. In the full document (Franke et al., 2007)
the errors or uncertainties listed above are further defined and explained. In this short summary
best practice advice on how to avoid errors and where this is not possible how to estimate and reduce errors and uncertainties in the numerical solutions is provided partly. The BPG is meant to
avoid or at least reduce what is known as user errors (Casey and Wintergerste, 2000).
2 BEST PRACTICE GUIDELINE

2.1 Review of existing guidelines

There are several previous initiatives to establish best practice guidelines in the field of flow
simulation in general and also for the application to the built environment.

The Fifth International Symposium on Computational Wind Engineering (CWE2010)

Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA May 23-27, 2010

For general CFD applications the ERCOFTAC Best Practice Guidelines (Casey and Wintergerste, 2000) is still the most complete document. Special problems of micro-scale meteorological
applications are however deliberately not addressed.
Best practice guidelines on CFD for wind engineering problems have been published by the
Thematic Network for Quality and Trust in the Industrial Application of CFD (QNET-CFD)
(Bartzis et al., 2004; Scaperdas and Gilham, 2004).
Besides these European activities the Architectural Institute of Japan has conducted a cooperative
project for CFD prediction of the pedestrian wind environment (Tominaga et al., 2008).
For the same application a working group of the European COST action C14 Impact of Wind
and Storms on City Life and Built Environment has compiled recommendations for conducting
CFD simulations from a comprehensive literature review (Franke et al., 2004).
Panskus (2000) suggests and applies test cases to evaluate micro-scale obstacle-accommodating
meteorology models. The closely related guideline of the VDI (the German Association of Engineers) concentrates on evaluation and validation of these models for flow around buildings and
obstacles (VDI, 2005).
The guideline is structured according to the general steps of conducting a numerical simulation
(Franke et al., 2004; Casey and Wintergerste, 2000; Menter et al., 2002). For each of these steps,
which are shortly described in the paragraphs below, more detail can be found in the full document. This guideline differs from most of the guidelines and recommendations mentioned above
by specifically addressing validation simulations, i.e. the careful comparison of the simulation results with experimental measurements.
2.2 Choice of target variables
As proposed by Schlnzen (1997) and Menter et al. (2002) the first step in a validation simulation should be the definition of the target variables. These should include the variables that are
representative of the goals of the simulation and those that can be compared with the corresponding experiments.
2.3 Choice of approximate equations describing the physics of the flow
The choice of the basic equations has the largest impact on the modelling errors and uncertainties
referring to the physics. The turbulent flow within urban or industrial environments is in general
modelled by the Navier-Stokes equations using one of the following closures for the turbulence:
Steady Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS)
Unsteady RANS (URANS)
Large Eddy Simulation (LES) and hybrid RANS-LES approaches
The guidelines focus on steady RANS simulations as they are the most common approach to
date. The recommendations should however also be considered when using URANS or LES.
2.4 Choice of the geometrical representation of obstacles
Normally the distribution of buildings has the greatest impact on wind flow patterns. Secondary
influence factors in the urban area include vegetation, orography and surface characteristics (e.g.
roads, grass, sand).
The central area of interest should be reproduced with as much detail as possible. This naturally
increases the number of cells that are necessary to resolve the details. The available resources often limit the details which can be reproduced.

The Fifth International Symposium on Computational Wind Engineering (CWE2010)

Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA May 23-27, 2010

2.5 Choice of the computational domain

The size of the entire computational domain in the vertical, lateral and flow directions depends
on the area that shall be represented and on the boundary conditions that will be used. More specific guidance is given in the full document for the
Vertical extension of the domain.
Lateral extension of the domain.
Extension of the domain in flow direction, divided in the region in front and behind the built area.
2.6 Choice of boundary conditions
The boundary conditions represent the influence of the surroundings that have been cut off by the
computational domain. As they determine to a large extent the solution inside the computational
domain, their proper choice is very important. Often, however, these boundary conditions are not
fully known. Therefore the boundaries of the computational domain should be far enough away
from the region of interest to not contaminate the solution there with the approximate boundary
conditions.
Inflow boundary conditions
At the inflow an equilibrium boundary layer is usually prescribed with certain requirements
that need to be fulfilled.
Wall boundary conditions
At solid walls a special treatment of the no-slip boundary condition by using wall functions is
normally applied for the velocities if the resolution is not sufficient. In case of commercial
CFD software attention must be paid to the correct definition of the roughness height.
Top boundary conditions
The choice of the top boundary condition is very important for sustaining equilibrium boundary layer profiles.
Lateral boundary conditions
In commercial CFD codes symmetry boundary conditions are normally used at the lateral
boundaries when the approach flow direction is parallel to them. In micro-scale obstacleaccommodating meteorological models open lateral radiation boundaries are frequently used
at the lateral boundaries. With these every horizontal boundary grid point can allow for inflow and outflow and this might also change in time (e.g. URANS applications). In both cases
there are requirements for the minimum distance between the boundary and the area of interest.
Outflow boundary conditions
At the boundary behind the obstacles (where all or most of the fluid leaves the computational
domain) open boundary conditions are used in commercial CFD and micro-scale obstacleaccommodating meteorology models. This boundary should be ideally sufficiently far away
from the built area to not have any fluid entering into the computational domain through this
boundary.

The Fifth International Symposium on Computational Wind Engineering (CWE2010)

Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA May 23-27, 2010

2.7 Choice of initial data

In RANS, URANS and LES models a boundary and initial value problem has to be solved numerically. The larger the model domain or the smaller the wind speed, the more relevant the initial data become.
For steady RANS stationary solutions are searched thus the iteration is stopped as soon as the solution is not changing any more or the iterative solution converges. In these cases mainly the
boundary values influence the model solution and the impact of the initial data is small. Initialising with a flow field that is close to the final solution will reduce the computational efforts
needed to reach stationary solutions.
For URANS and LES, the initial data determine the time dependent development in the beginning of the simulation. As a rule of thumb the impact time can be estimated with a relation including the domain size and wind speed. During this initial period the model results are very dependent on the initial data and should not be interpreted as solution which reflects the final flow.
Initial data and inflow data are very often used as one and the same. Therefore the current best
practice advice is to keep initial data uncertainty as little as possible and keep in mind that the
initial data influence the model results in unsteady simulations.
2.8 Choice of the computational grid
When referring to the computational grid one first has to define the discretisation method that
shall be used for the basic equations. The following discussion is restricted to the closely related
Finite Volume and Finite Difference methods with a strong bias towards the Finite Volume
method as this is widely used in commercial CFD codes and micro-scale obstacleaccommodating meteorological models. For the Finite Element discretisation method different
requirements exist for the quality of the computational grid (Casey and Wintergerste, 2000).
With the Finite Volume and Finite Difference methods the computational results depend crucially
on the grid that is used to discretise the computational domain. The grid has to be designed in
such a manner that it does not introduce errors that are too large. This means that the resolution
of the grid should be fine enough to capture the important physical phenomena like shear layers
and vortices with sufficient resolution. Methods to quantify the influence of the grid resolution
are provided in the full document (Franke et al., 2007).
In addition the grid should not be too much skewed and grid stretching/compression should be
small in regions of high gradients to keep the truncation error small (expansion ratio between two
consecutive cells should be typically below 1.3).
2.9 Choice of numerical approximations
To render the basic equations solvable on the computer they have to be discretised and transformed into algebraic equations. The most important numerical approximation is the one used for
the non-linear advective1 terms in the basic equations (see e.g. Cowan et al., 1997; Menter et al.,
2002).

In engineering sciences advection is named convection (transport caused by the flow field). Since convection is dedicated in
meteorology to describe a mostly unresolved vertical atmospheric movement forming in an unstable (convective) atmosphere,
we use advection in this text.

The Fifth International Symposium on Computational Wind Engineering (CWE2010)

Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA May 23-27, 2010

2.10 Choice of the time step size

When performing unsteady simulations, the size of the time step is another important parameter
for the accuracy of the results. If the relevant frequency range can be estimated, then the highest
frequency should be resolved with at least 10 20 time steps per period (Menter et al., 2002).
Another method to estimate the time step in advection dominated problems is the relation t =
CFL xmin / Umax, where xmin is the minimum grid width, Umax is the maximum velocity and
CFL is the Courant-Friedrichs-Lewy number.
2.11 Choice of iterative convergence criteria
Most of the computer programs use iterative methods to solve the entire algebraic system of
equations or part of it (e.g. the equation for the pressure). Starting from an initial guess the flow
variables are recalculated in each of the iterations until the equations are solved up to a userspecified error. The termination criterion is usually based on the residuals of the corresponding
equations. These residuals should tend towards zero. Especially in complex geometries like urban
areas the residuals may not drop below a user-specified error. Therefore it is also recommended
to monitor the target variables as a function of iteration or time step to have additional information on the steadiness of the computed solution.
This procedure should also be followed when unsteady simulations are to be performed. Implicit
time integration methods require iterations within the time steps so the above should be applied
within each time step.
3 USER FEEDBACK
During the COST action no special funding was provided to perform the simulations. However a
number of participants performed quality assurance steps on the simulations of the two cases for
which detailed information was provided. They both were wind tunnel physical models of real
experiments performed in the US, firstly the Mock Urban Setting Test (dispersion around a regular array of container in the Utah desert) and secondly the Oklahoma Joint Urban 2003 field campaign. On the first case, a number of users did grid sensitivity analyses with different codes and
some went as far as Richardson extrapolation. The influence of boundary conditions, especially
upstream was studied by others. A team did a detailed study of the influence of the turbulent
Schmidt number. Fort the second case, for which the simulations were started later in the action,
fewer teams were involved. The mesh of this very complex case was already a big undertaking
and therefore little was done, within the action, which required grid modifications. Rather the
analyses performed by the different teams involved change of turbulence modelling, change of
the modelling of the source, the influence of having open or closed garages in the city (especially
around the release point) and the influence of the mean wind direction, for which a difference of
10 was shown to have quite a large influence (see Fig. 1).
4 CONCLUSIONS
The best practice guideline, which we have briefly described here is a collection of results from
former initiatives in the field of CFD in general and for its application to urban flows. The guideline focuses on applications of the statistically steady RANS equations for situations with neutral
stratification without dispersion modelling. However, users of other models like unsteady RANS
(URANS) and LES models should consider the same suggestions. Differences and some more

The Fifth International Symposium on Computational Wind Engineering (CWE2010)

Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA May 23-27, 2010

but not extensive information for URANS and LES applications are also given. The guideline
provides general advice that should be taken into account when performing the simulations for
model validation and has been tested within the COST Action 732. From the results of these validation simulations specific guidelines for the validation test cases and refined general guidelines
have been produced in the course of the action. These include advice on pollution modelling
within CFD codes and on the proper use of non-CFD codes. During the action, several groups
applied these practise on two cases involving very complex urban geometries.

10120
8433
7028
5856
4880
4067
3389
2824
2354
1961
1634
1362
1135
946
788
657
547
456
380
317
264
220
183
153
127
106

WD=170o; flow z=3m; dispersion z=10m

WD=180o; flow z=3m; dispersion z=10m

WD=190o; flow z=3; dispersion z=10

Figure 1. Example of the influence of small mean wind direction changes on the flow and dispersion in Park Avenue
of Oklahoma City (from wind tunnel measurements) and plotted with the same tool as used for all model comparison.

The Fifth International Symposium on Computational Wind Engineering (CWE2010)

Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA May 23-27, 2010

5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The templates for analysis (visualization and statistics) of the CFD results were provided by Ruwim Berkowicz
6 REFERENCES
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