Experimental and numerical investigation of the urban boundary layer in Livorno city

In the present study, the wind flow in the urban boundary layer and within the canopy layer of a complex urban area in Livorno city has been investigated numerically and experimentally. In particular, the quarter “La Venezia” has been selected as case study and a model of this area at the reduced scale 1:300 has been studied. Wind tunnel tests on a reduced physical model (1:300) have been carried out in the closed-circuit wind tunnel of the University of Genoa for three different wind directions and the vertical wind velocity profiles have been measured at different heights above ground level by means of a multihole probe. Then, preliminary CFD simulations on only one block of the quarter have been performed in order to understand how the model accuracy can affect the wind flow in the canopy layer. According to these results, in the next future CFD simulations will be carried out on the whole urban quarter and the wind velocity profiles measured experimentally will be compared with CFD simulations.