Comparative Analysis of Inlet Boundary Conditions for Atmospheric Boundary Layer Simulation Using OpenFOAM

The atmospheric boundary layer has been extensively studied by using computational fluid dynamics. The simulation of the atmospheric boundary layer has been conducted either by solving RANS equation or by LES simulation. LES simulation provides higher accuracy in the result but with a very high computational cost. Due to this higher cost in computational effort, RANS turbulence modelling has been preferred by most of the researchers. In Computational fluid dynamics, the role of inlet conditions is more important for any simulation problem. In this study, a comparative analysis has been conducted using open source CFD tool OpenFoam for different inlet boundary conditions for the atmospheric boundary layer. Horizontal homogeneity is a very keen factor while simulating the atmospheric boundary layer. The analysis has been conducted by taking the inlet and outlet profiles of velocity, turbulent dissipation rate, and turbulent kinetic energy. Analysis with different turbulence model constants was also conducted and the results are discussed.