A data report of the impact of different terrain types on the performance of windcatchers.

The reported data in this article were obtained through a series of numerical CFD simulations that quantifies the natural ventilation performance of a two-sided windcatcher exposed to free wind flow which is affected by various types of ground surface features. The data production process includes the generation of the geometry of the building model and the windcatcher (modelled in Rhino), the construction of the computational domain and a high-quality grid (Hexpress), setting up the appropriate boundary conditions, and applying the numerical solution settings and performing the simulations (using ANSYS Fluent). The conducted simulations provided the flow field and temperature distribution inside the building that was located in the city of Nottingham, the UK with the reference wind speed of 3.1 m/s at the reference height of 10 m. The influence of four different terrains (open, rough, suburban and urban regions) on the wind free stream was considered. The represented numerical data encourages further numerical and experimental investigations toward the efficient aerodynamic design of the windcatchers.