Abstract:
In the extreme wind and cold weather conditions, animals have developed incredible protection techniques in order to achieve the regulation of body thermal insulation. While birds fluff their feathers to reduce heat loss, some animals take advantage of the other varying unique structures of the skin. In this study, inspired by birds, the effect of hairy surfaces like hedgehog skin on thermal insulation and also heat production at the low-speed wind on the building wall surface was investigated numerically by using the finite element method. For this, a portion of the wall surface was covered with rigid barbs to increase friction on the wall, and for the comparison, a part of the surface was left smooth without any coating. Menter's shear stress transport (SST) turbulence model by algebraic multigrid solver was used for the modeling of wind motion and heat transfer equations by direct solver PARDISO was used to simulate heat transfer in the solid and fluid environment. According to the numerical calculation, the wind speed slows down along the rough surface, high-pressure zone on the surface (a thick no-slip boundary region) was created and a part of wind energy was converted to extra heat and especially the convective heat loss due to the movement of the wind on the surface was reduced, and finally, the building was insulated further by creating a stagnant air layer in the barbs.
