There is increasing interest for the application of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to the study of flows in the lower part of the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL). The simulation of atmospheric flows, often over complex domain, is necessary for the estimation of wind loads on buildings, wind turbine siting, pollutant dispersion and pedestrian wind comfort.

The present hybrid Lecture Series (on-site and online) offers a wide overview of the state-of-the-art, with applications ranging from microclimate, wind engineering, to mesoscale, meteorology, and their coupling. Reynolds-Averaged (RANS) and Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) approaches are discussed and their respective capabilities at meso- and microscales are evaluated, with focus on realistic inflow, wall modelling, uncertainty quantification and validation. Emerging trends such as the use of graphics processing units (GPUs) for acceleration of high-fidelity simulations are also addressed, including a tutorial of the open-source GPU-resident FastEddy code.

The lecture series director is Prof. Wim Munters from the von Karman Institute.

Monday 2 June 2025

08:30 – 09:00 Registration

09:00 – 09:15 Welcome address

09:15 - 10:45 Introduction to the simulation of atmospheric flows
Prof. Bert Blocken, Heriot-Watt University, United Kingdom & KU Leuven, Belgium

10:45 - 11:15 Coffee Break

11:15 - 12:45 Introduction to the simulation of atmospheric flows
Prof. Bert Blocken, Heriot-Watt University, United Kingdom & KU Leuven, Belgium

12:45 - 14:00 Lunch Break

14:00 - 15:15 Turbulence model formulation and dispersion modelling for the CFD simulation of flows around obstacles and on complex terrains
Prof. Alessandro Parente, Free University of Brussels, Belgium

15:15 - 15:45 Coffee Break

15:45 - 17:00 Turbulence model formulation and dispersion modelling for the CFD simulation of flows around obstacles and on complex terrains
Prof. Alessandro Parente, Free University of Brussels, Belgium

17:00 Reception in VKI canteen

Tuesday 3 June 2025

09:00 - 10:30 Introduction to Numerical Weather Forecasting: from global scale to microscale
Dr. Orkun Temel, Royal Observatory of Belgium, Belgium

10:30 - 11:00 Coffee Break

11:00 - 12:30 Mesoscale modelling of atmospheric flows with applications to offshore wind energy
Prof. Wim Munters, von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics, Belgium

12:30 - 14:00 Lunch Break

14:00 - 15:15 Modelling wind energy in the atmospheric boundary layer
Prof. Michael F. Howland, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA

15:15 -15:45 Coffee Break

15:45 - 17:00 Introduction to uncertainty quantification for atmospheric boundary layer flows
Prof. Catherine Gorlé, Stanford University, USA

Wednesday 4 June 2025

09:00 - 10:30 Bayesian uncertainty quantification for atmospheric flow and wind energy applications
Prof. Michael F. Howland, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA

10:30 - 11:00 Coffee Break

11:00 - 12:30 Uncertainty Quantification for environmental wind engineering applications
Prof. Catherine Gorlé, Stanford University, USA

12:30 - 14:00 Lunch Break

14:00 - 15:15 Predicting wind loading on buildings
Prof. Catherine Gorlé, Stanford University, USA

15:15 - 15:45 Coffee Break

15:45 - 17:00 Large-eddy simulation of atmospheric flows
Dr. Branko Kosovic, Johns Hopkins University, USA

Thursday 5 June 2025

09:00 - 10:30 Large-eddy simulation of atmospheric flows (cont’d)
Dr. Branko Kosovic, Johns Hopkins University, USA

10:30 - 11:00 Coffee Break

11:00 - 12:30 Large-eddy simulation of atmospheric flows (cont’d)
Dr. Branko Kosovic, Johns Hopkins University, USA

12:30 - 14:00 Lunch Break

14:00 - 15:15 Multiscale modelling of the atmospheric boundary layer: coupling challenge and the cell perturbation method
Dr. Domingo Munoz-Esparza, National Center for Atmospheric Research, USA

15:15 - 15:30 Coffee Break

15:30 - 16:30 Visit of the VKI Labs

16:30 - 17:00 Tutorial on FastEddy GPU Large-eddy simulation code
Dr. Domingo Munoz-Esparza, National Center for Atmospheric Research, USA

Friday 6 June 2025

09:00 - 10:30 Multiscale modelling of the atmospheric boundary layer: from weather to resolved turbulence eddies with accelerated GPU LES
Dr. Domingo Munoz-Esparza, National Center for Atmospheric Research, USA

10:30 - 11:00 Coffee Break

11:00 - 12:30 Mesoscale to microscale wind farm flow modelling and evaluation
Dr. Javier Sanz Rodrigo, Siemens Gamesa, Spain

12:30 - 14:00 Lunch Break

14:00 - 15:15 Mesoscale to microscale wind farm flow modelling and evaluation
Dr. Javier Sanz Rodrigo, Siemens Gamesa, Spain

15:15 - 15:30 Coffee Break

15:30 - 17:00 Seminar on "Large-eddy simulation of terrain- and wind farm-induced atmospheric gravity waves"
Dr. Sebastiano Stipa, von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics

Abstract: Atmospheric gravity waves (AGWs) are formed when a flow parcel is perturbed vertically in a stably stratified flow. These waves can be triggered directly in the atmosphere (e.g. by thunderstorms) or indirectly, when the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) interacts with large obstacles such as terrain or wind farms. AGWs influence a wide range of engineering applications, from upstream wind deceleration and wake recovery within wind farms to strong wind events on the leeward side of large mountainous formations. While AGWs are an essential part of atmosphere dynamics at all meteorological scales, the present lecture focuses on atmospheric gravity waves induced by objects located inside the boundary layer, such as hills or large wind farms, and on the simulation of their effects on the boundary layer flow.

A major modeling challenge is the spurious reflection of gravity waves at the computational domain boundaries. This is addressed by introducing specialized boundary conditions referred to as fringe, advection damping and Rayleigh damping layers. When dealing with large-eddy simulations of the ABL, it is essential to also predict turbulence and its statistics on top of accurately capturing the spatial evolution of gravity waves. In this regard, the concurrent-precursor method, which runs a concurrent simulation of the turbulent flow, undisturbed by gravity waves, is introduced. This methodology allows one to feed time-resolved turbulence at the inlet, while applying wave damping at the same time. When also applied at the lateral boundaries, the concurrent-precursor technique enables prescription of flow direction and state changes, desirable features for more realistic meso-to-microscale coupled simulations. Finally, the boundary deformation method is introduced, which allows to model the effect of stationary gravity waves without actually resolving these waves in the simulation, leading to a consistent save in compute resources.

Please check our eligibility criteria before registering.

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on-site - Undergraduate Students (Proof Needed)	350.0
on-site - PhD Students (Proof Needed)	960.0
on-site - Recognized Universities / Research Center	1520.0
on-site - Commercial Organizations	1920.0
on-site - Special Registration	0.0
on-site - Lecturer	0.0
online - Undergraduate Students (Proof Needed)	315.0
online - PhD Students (Proof Needed)	864.0
online - Recognized Universities / Research Center	1368.0
online - Commercial Organizations	1728.0
online - Special Registration	0.0
online - Lecturer	0.0

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CFD for Atmospheric Flows and Wind Engineering 2025

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