A fluid mechanicians view of wind engineering: Large eddy simulation of flow past a cubic obstacle

We present a fluid mechanicians view of computations of complex 3-D flows in wind engineering. In particular, we focus on large eddy simulation (LES) in which the large scales of motion are computed explicitly while the small or subgrid-scale motions are modeled. This approach can accurately capture the effects of large-scale motions such as wind forces and their fluctuations. Some general issues related to LES in wind engineering are discussed and sample results from simulations of flow past a cubic obstacle are presented.