Performances of parametric laws for computing the wind speed profile in the urban boundary layer. Comparison to two-dimensional building water channel experiment

The wind flow above the urban canopy depends strongly on the geometry of the buildings and other roughness elements that characterize the city. Given the high variability of real urban textures, the estimation of the wind speed is a rather difficult task, even for relatively simple building geometries. This problem is currently handled by means of similarity laws. This study analyzes some of the laws generally adopted to determine the vertical profile of the wind speed above the canopy layer in neutral conditions. The performance of such laws is tested against water-channel data simulating a two-dimensional array of regular buildings.