RT Journal Article
T1 A fast and automated approach for urban CFD simulations: validation with meteorological predictions and its application to drone flights
A1 Suárez Vázquez, Marcos
A1 Varela Ballesta, Sylvana
A1 Otero Cacho, Alberto
A1 Pérez Muñuzuri, Alberto
A1 Mira Pérez, Jorge
K1 Computational fluid dynamics
K1 Urban planning
K1 Terrain reconstruction
K1 Building reconstruction
K1 Validation study
K1 Drones
K1 Wind tunnel
AB In past years, several studies have proposed new methods and applications for urban wind simulations, including geometry reconstruction from urban data sources or improved boundary condition definition. In this article, we present a fast and automated methodology for reconstructing airflows within urban environments using LiDAR and cadastral data coupled with Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations. Our approach integrates meteorological predictions with computational techniques to simulate the complex interactions between wind currents, buildings, vegetation, water zones and terrain morphology within urban environments. Accurate boundary conditions based on meteorological predictions are introduced into a coupled methodology that directly creates the terrain shape inside the simulation environment, simplifying the geometry creation process, which is one of the most prevalent problems in CFD urban simulations. The simulation results are confronted against ground-truth real data obtained from a meteorological station, showing strong agreement with the outcomes generated by the proposed CFD model, with a concordance correlation coefficient up to ρ and ρ c c =0.985 for the wind direction =0.853 for the wind speed. The results from these simulations are then used for validating a wind tunnel approach that mimics the interaction between a moving drone and the extracted wind currents, demonstrating a great improvement in computation times when compared to the most straightforward approach that consists in embedding the drone within the full urban landscape. This research contributes to the advancement of urban CFD modeling, and it has significant implications for various applications, providing valuable insights for urban development.
PB Elsevier
YR 2025
FD 2025-12
LK https://hdl.handle.net/10347/46968
UL https://hdl.handle.net/10347/46968
LA eng
NO Suárez-Vázquez, M., Ballesta, S. V., Otero-Cacho, A., Muñuzuri, A. P., & Mira, J. (2025). A fast and automated approach for urban CFD simulations: validation with meteorological predictions and its application to drone flights. Urban Climate, 64, 102664. 10.1016/j.uclim.2025.102664
NO M. Suárez-Vázquez thanks the support of the Doutoramento Industrial program from GAIN-Xunta de Galicia (IN606D).
DS Minerva
RD 7 may 2026