Testing times for buildings | Archive Titles

Table 1: Relative merits of cfd and wind tunnel testing
Method	Advantages	Disadvantages
Wind tunnel testing
	Well established and validated	Relatively few centres with suitable facilities
	Mainly performed by specialist contractors	Measurements carried out at discrete points – not the entire flow field
	Suitable for safety critical issues	Scaling may sometimes be an issue
	Flexible – can be used for most wind engineering applications
	Numerous wind directions can be tested, quickly and easily
	Flow visualisation possible

CFD
	Can be done in-house	Not well established for wind engineering
	Full flow field predicted	Not suitable for structural studies and safety critical issues
	Flow visualisation possible	Time-averaged results only
		Results difficult to interpret – specialist knowledge is essential
		Reliability of results can be uncertain