Catherine Gorlé
Stanford University
Seminar Information
Engineering Building Unit 2 (EBU2)
Room 479
Seminar Recording Available: Please contact seminar coordinator, Jake Blair at (j1blair@ucsd.edu)
Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) can inform sustainable design of buildings and cities in terms of optimizing pedestrian wind comfort, air quality, thermal comfort, energy efficiency, and resiliency to extreme wind events. An important challenge is that the accuracy of predictions can be compromised by the complexity of the flow physics and the large natural variability that are characteristic of urban flow problems. This talk will present an investigation of the potential of large-eddy simulations (LES) towards predicting peak wind pressure loads on high rise-buildings. First, the emphasis is on validation of LES predicted wind pressures against wind tunnel measurements. This validation exercise demonstrates that LES can accurately predict the complex bluff body flow physics, while also revealing the non-negligible influence of uncertainty in the wind tunnel boundary layer on the predicted wind pressures. Next, the focus shifts to validation against full-scale pressure measurements on two high-rise buildings. The results largely confirm the findings of the wind tunnel validation study, but they also reveal the additional challenges introduced by the natural variability in the field. The unique capability of LES results for providing insights into the flow physics that govern extreme suction events will be demonstrated throughout the talk. I will conclude the talk by highlighting the benefits of methodological convergence for the analysis of wind effects on buildings.
Gorlé received her BSc (2002) and MSc (2005) degrees in Aerospace Engineering from the Delft University of Technology, and her PhD (2010) from the von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics in cooperation with the University of Antwerp. Afterwards she was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Turbulence Research at Stanford University and a Research Professor at the von Karman Institute funded by a Pegasus Marie Curie fellowship. Before joining the Civil & Environmental Engineering Department at Stanford she was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering & Engineering Mechanics at Columbia University.
Gorle's research focuses on the development of predictive flow simulations to support the design of sustainable buildings and cities. Specific topics of interest are the coupling of large- and small-scale models and experiments to quantify uncertainties related to the variability of boundary conditions, the development of uncertainty quantification methods for low-fidelity models using high-fidelity data, and the use of field measurements to validate and improve computational predictions.