Numerical simulation of convective heat transfer at the surfaces of a cube

Knowledge of the convective heat transfer coefficient (CHTC) on building walls is important for research on building energy and building component durability. In building aerodynamics, steady RANS is frequently used to model air flow, rather than unsteady RANS (URANS) or Large-Eddy Simulations (LES). To gain insight into the performance of LES compared to steady RANS, this paper presents LES and RANS CFD simulations of the temperature distributions at the surfaces of a reduced-scale cubic model measured in turbulent channel flow. The evaluation is based on a grid-sensitivity analysis. The results show that LES can accurately predict the surface temperature distributions of the cube walls. Steady RANS, however, indicates a satisfactory agreement with the experiments only for the windward surface.