Numerical modelling of airflow within and above forests and forest clearings using computational fluid dynamics

The computational fluid dynamics program, FLUENT, was first tested to validate windtunnel measurements of a scaled 10 ha forest clearing in a two dimensional domain. A variety of domain and canopy configurations were examined along with processor settings. Validation of the CFD program produced excellent results for horizontal wind velocity. Conifer shaped tree elements for the forest stands performed well and similar to the more traditional way of representing forest canopies. Turbulent kinetic energy (TKE) values output by the program seem to over predict the values calculated by using wind tunnel statistics. Various sizes of forest clearings were simulated to determine the stress that would be experienced by a forest edge immediately downwind of a clearing. Shorter gaps (<15 tree heights) seem to experience higher values of TKE over the downwind forest, compared to the stand upwind of the clearing; and lower stress values along the downwind forest edge. Larger gaps (>60 tree heights) saw higher stress values but TKE values no larger than those reported upwind of the clearing. From the stress values calculated from various input velocities and gap sizes, a new tool was produced which takes into account a sites endemic wind speed and canopy density to predict stress on forest edges downwind of clearings.