Numerical and experimental study of the flow through a geometrically accurate porous wind barrier model

•Flow characteristics of the turbulent wake behind the barrier are experimentally and numerically investigated.•Complex flow near and through the openings of a porous wind barrier is treated at a detailed level.•We modeled accurate geometric model of a barrier.•URANS computation with SST k-omega turbulence model was used.

A method in which the complex flow near and through the openings of a porous wind barrier is treated at a detailed level. The flow characteristics of the turbulent wake behind the barrier are experimentally and numerically investigated. The wind barrier is accurately geometrically represented with a three-dimensional model in the numerical simulation. Barrier models consisting of horizontal bars with different inclination angles are considered. The unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (URANS) computation is applied because the flow is not statistically stationary. The shear stress transport (SST) k–ω turbulence model is used because it shows good behavior in adverse and separated flows. In addition to the three-dimensional URANS numerical study, an experimental study is performed to confirm the numerical data. The aim is to conduct an experimental and numerical study of a fluid flow through the geometrically accurate three-dimensional barrier model and analyze the bar inclination effect on the wake characteristics behind the barrier. As the bar inclination angle decreases, the bleed flow gets stronger, which results in a smaller reduction of the mean streamwise velocity. In addition, the turbulence intensity decreases in the shelter wake with a decreasing bar inclination angle.