Producing an urban-wind field database with OpenFOAM – Work Package 6 of the CHIMERA project

The CHIMERA project (Comprehensive Hazard Identification and Monitoring systEm for uRban Areas) is based on developments in earlier research and innovation projects, i.e. EU-SENSE and EU-RADION, and aims to provide a technological improvement in the chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) hazard domain. Specifically, the goal is to develop software that can combine data from various sensor inputs with results from dispersion/backtracking models in a flexible manner, presented in a coherent graphical user interface. Part of the project, Work Package 6, involves the continued development of software for fast and reliable numerical predictions of CBRN dispersion and deposition, based on precomputed local-wind simulations.

This report describes the meshing and simulation protocol developed in Task 6.2 of CHIMERA, presents the reasoning behind the most important modeling decisions, gives recommendations for usage, and shows a few examples of the application of the CHIMERA meshing and simulation protocol. A publicly available open-source software, OpenFOAM®, is the main component for meshing and simulation. Relevant literature for further insight into urban-wind modeling is also given in the report.