Abstract
In association with building form and height among other physical attributes, wind accelerates around the high-rise building skin at particular regions substantially. In many emerging applications today the building top is favoured for mounting wind rotors. One of the most significant current discussions is the utilisation of facade area for power generation out of wind energy. However, because of the complexity of the wind behaviour current planning methods dispute with that problem in later stages. Due to the high associated investment in rotors as well as their impact on the appearance of the building, one would suggest that the optimisation of rotors' position together with other decisive parameters should come in first place and must be considered as early as possible. This paper introduces a method for maximising the performance of facade integrated wind rotors. The resulting planning software tool can be utilised by the architect in the conceptual design stage. The validation of the outcomes indicates high level of plausibility and thus application potentials. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.