3D Visual Plant Models in Computational Fluid Dynamics Simulation of Ambient Wind Flow around an Isolated Tree

Plants can reduce the velocity of wind and wind erosion and prevent the movement of sand.But it may be extremely difficult to measure directly the aerodynamic characteristics of the airflow near the real vegetation in field experiments on account of restriction by many objective factors.Therefore,numerous investigations have been carried out to study the efficiency of windbreaks by conducting wind tunnel experiments on simulated models or using computational fluid dynamics（CFD） simulation instead of field measurements.Plant models are simplified at some level to be used for numerical simulation in existing literatures.It is a little distortion of leaves in details if the tree canopy is regarded as a whole region which can have a certain influence on the CFD simulation.Hence,one modeling approach that combines Visual Basic for applications（VBA） and computer aided design（CAD） technology is proposed to design 3D virtual plant models.The tree models used for numerical simulation of wind flow around trees are more lifelike.In addition,this method can be applied for creating a 3D virtual vegetation library.It is also more convenient to get the diversified biological indicators by digital plants in computer.