Department of Architecture & Civil Engineering, Unit Catalogue 2006/07

AR40282 CFD environmental modelling

Credits: 3

Level: Masters

Semester: 2

Assessment: CW100

Requisites:

Before taking this unit you must take AR30024

Aims: To provide students with an understanding of CFD and its use in the design of buildings and structures.
Learning Outcomes:
On successful completion of this unit the successful student will be able to demonstrate:
* an introductory understanding of the use of Computational Fluid Dynamics for the investigation of natural air flows in and around buildings, including buoyancy effects and pressure driven flow as well as wind effects on structures;
* an understanding of the governing equations of fluid flow and how they are derived;
* an understanding of discretisation and solution techniques;
* some experience of the use of commercially available software packages to provide experience of methods used in practice, primarily in simple examples in order to provide experience of the relative degree to which different design variables affect the environmental conditions;
* an understanding of the various numerical and computational issues by writing a computer program to simulate a pollution dispersion diffusion problem.
The student will also be able to demonstrate:
* a systematic understanding of this knowledge, and a critical awareness of current problems and/or new insights, much of which is at, or informed by, the forefront of this area of professional practice;
* conceptual understanding that enables the student to evaluate critically current practice and new developments, and propose new solutions;
* an ability to deal with complex issues both systematically and creatively, make sound judgements in the absence of complete data, and communicate their conclusions clearly.
Skills:
Intellectual skills
* Ability to apply the concepts and principles of CFD to the design and solution of engineering problems.
* To understand taught material - taught
Professional/Practical skills
* To deal with CFD issues in a systematic yet creative way, and to communicate the conclusions clearly. An ability to use of commercial software packages for the investigation of the internal building environment and external wind interaction with structures. The ability to write a simple CFD computer program for simulating pollutant dispersion problems.
Transferable/key skills
* Ability to collect, analyse, synthesise and present technical information.
* To demonstrate communication and team working skills.
Content:
Computational Fluid Dynamics: Industrial applications of CFD in both internal and external building environments; revision of fluid dynamics (boundary layers, separation and turbulence); mesh generation (structured meshes, unstructured meshes, transformation of coordinates); introduction to and derivation of the governing equations (mass conservation, Navier-Stokes and energy conservation equations); discretisation, including finite difference, finite volume and finite element methods; solution methods for the Navier-Stokes Equations; turbulence and turbulence modelling; wind effects on structures, including a case study of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapse. Use of commercial CFD package CFX and MATLAB programming language.

University | Catalogues for 2006/07