Validation of large eddy simulations in urban wind studies using a new overall area metric

There is an increase in reliance on large-eddy simulations (LES) over traditional Reynolds-Averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) simulations for conducting urban wind studies because of their potential to capture detailed flow characteristics and unsteady flow phenomena. Validation remains a crucial aspect of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis. Yet, LES validation often relies on traditional RANS-based metrics that focus on mean quantities, despite LES providing richer flow details. With adequate LES validation guidelines lacking in the computational wind engineering literature, this paper introduces a new validation metric tailored for LES in urban wind studies. This study uses the ”Michelstadt” test case, a semi-idealized model of a generic European city, to demonstrate the metric's evaluation. It begins by assessing the importance of mesh sensitivity and inflow generation techniques in achieving high-fidelity LES results. Then, the proposed metric, called the overall area metric (OAM), improves the evaluation of LES results by quantitatively comparing the cumulative density functions (CDFs) of the velocity time series of LES with experiments. The LES results for mean velocity and Reynolds stresses align well with the experimental data based on traditional hit rate and factor of two metrics both within and above the urban canopy layer (UCL). The OAM reveals poor results above the building compared to the results within the UCL for the mean streamwise velocity. Therefore, the OAM metric accurately represents velocity distributions, allowing validation of a wider range of wind speeds, unlike previous metrics. This is important in recent LES studies on rare high-wind events, such as gusts.