An unusual post maybe - looking for advice and ideas on how to solve a potentially harmful wind condition in a project of mine.
I have run a bunch of CFDs now testing different potential solutions, with not a lot of success.
Because this project is confidential I’ll attempt to explain with sketches for this:
I have a building that consists of two towers with a bridge connecting them forming a tunnel, under this tunnel is the dropoffs for both towers.
The Bridge is about 5 floors (20m ish) above the ground level.
The entire development is raised up about 10m from sea level on a big podium you drive up to.
In the center of the tunnel is a long pool with driveway wrapping it for the dropoffs
the tunnel could not be more perfectly aligned with the 3 primary wind directions.
There are a couple of big issues:
- The climate is very rainy, and with this wind, there is a real concern for a ton of wind driven rain into the drop-off area given how high the bridge is
- The architecture perfectly increases wind speed via venturi effect and downwash, and you end up with 8-11m/s wind in the drop off area when the ambient wind speed outside is the average for the climate, around 4m/s. the 90th percentile wind for this climate is like 9m/s and then the wind under the tunnel is 20m/s+
- The problem is two fold - you get downwash and a vortex off the corner of the tall tower that dives between the two buildings, and you get downwash off the side of the bridge that dives under and accelerates
- If you remove the bridge, you exasperate the corner downwash from the tall tower because some of it is not hitting the top of the bridge now
- I’ve tried numerous potential solutions, all with some success but certainly not enough to warrant doing them:
- A lower canopy that covers the drop off areas at only one floor height, under the bridge - this gets some of the wind from the bridge downwash and keeps it above, but it accelerates the wind downwashing from the corner of the building. I’ve tried various extents in plan and heights / shape canopies.
- A bunch of trees around the corner of the building, and within the drop-off center area - this helps in the immediate area, but not around it at all.
- Chamfering the corner of the tower helps a little bit mitigate the downwash, but this is very against the design language, and does not help at all the bridge issue.
- The bridge cannot get higher, but it could maybe go a floor lower - not ideal - but this also does not help, it squeezes the wind more.
So I am hoping for some solution ideas, from some of you that are not as tired ;). thank you.
