Pedestrian-level wind environment near a square-shaped super-tall building in various urban-like settings

The pedestrian-level wind environment (PLWE) near super-tall buildings, buildings taller than 300 m, is less understood compared to wind effects on them. The PLWE near a square-shaped super-tall building in 14 different urban-like settings is evaluated using three-dimensional, steady-state, Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (3D RANS) equation-based computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. The characteristics of PLWEs, such as maximum normalized mean wind speed ratio (Kmax) and percentage areas of high and low wind speed (AHWS and ALWS), are investigated with respect to a set of design parameters, including frontal area ratio (λf), street aspect ratio (SR), uniformity of building height, and building arrangement of the urban settings. The results show a positive correlation between Kmax and SR, λf of the surroundings with uniform height buildings and advantages of adopting staggered arrangement to alleviate intense wind flows in urban areas. Nonuniform-height buildings in a staggered arrangement effectively reduce Kmax and eliminate AHWS but have less effect in modifying ALWS.