Numerical Study on the Existence of the Venturi Effect in Passages between Perpendicular Buildings

The Venturi effect refers to the increase in fluid speed due to a decrease of the flow section in confined flows. The wind speed conditions in converging and diverging passages between perpendicular buildings are studied with computational fluid dynamics to investigate the extent to which the so-called Venturi effect is present in the passages. Model validation is performed by comparing the numerical results with wind tunnel measurements. The validated model is employed for a detailed investigation of the wind speed and the flow rate in the passages for a wide range of passage widths. The simulations show an increase in wind speed near ground level, but a decrease of horizontal wind speed in the upper part of the converging passages. The reason is the wind-blocking effect, which causes a large part of the oncoming wind to flow over and around the buildings, rather than being forced through the passage. Due to this effect, the flow rates through the converging passages are consistently lower than the free-field flow rate, implying that the term Venturi effect is less applicable for such building configurations.