Study on the surface pressure distribution of cubes in cross-wind arrays

•We observed surface pressure characteristic of side-by-side cubes placed in turbulent boundary layer.•We examine the effects of the gap on the surface pressure variation.•Wind tunnel measurements are carefully designed to make a proper tendency.•The measurement of a single cube confirms that the results of the tunnel test are consistent with those in existing papers.•Depending on the position around the cube, the surface pressure distribution has a significant change.

In this study, effects of the gap on equal-spaced cubical bodies (150 mm×150 mm×150 mm) placed in a turbulent boundary layer were investigated inside an atmospheric boundary layer wind tunnel. This study includes various measurements of surface-pressure distribution around a building in close proximity to surrounding obstacles. In addition, we examined the surface-pressure variation with cube distances (G) at 75 mm (0.5 h), 150 mm (1 h), 225 mm (1.5 h) and ∞∞ (i.e., a single cube). The experiments conducted included some boundary layer wind tunnel tests with Hot Wire Anemometry (HWA) and mean and fluctuating surface-pressure measurements around a set of cubes aligned in parallel. The tunnel tests were carried out at two different Reynolds numbers (Re=4.6×1044.6×104 and 6.7×1046.7×104), based on wind velocity Uh (4.5 m/s and 7.3 m/s) at a cube height h. On analyzing the results, we discovered that the gap effect of surrounding models has a significant influence on the pressure variation around the central model. The overall surface-pressure coefficient around the central structure was generally found to increase as the gap (G) between the structures was increased.