Wind environment and pollutant dispersion around high-rise buildings with different void space structures

Abstract

In modern cities, the designs of high-rise buildings are no longer limited to a simple hexahedron. Void spaces emerge where designers add terraces into the building, setting up leisure areas, wind turbines, fresh air systems, etc. As void space structures have a significant impact on the wind environment and pollutant dispersion around high-rise buildings, this study conducts computational fluid dynamics numerical simulations on six high-rise building models with different void region structures. The findings show that both the position and size of void space structures have significant impacts on the wind environment and pollutant dispersion around high-rise buildings. A wall in the wind path in the void space can reduce the wind force and can lower the pollutant concentration on the leeward side. Therefore, it is deemed advisable to set up a leisure area or sky garden in the leeward of this layer of this structure. In addition, when the void space is located just in the middle of the void region layer, pollutants can easily accumulate on the leeward side. Therefore, a fresh air system should be installed at the leeward side to remove pollutants and wind turbines can be installed in voids with high wind speed to use wind power.