Wind Field Simulation and Its Impacts on Athletes’ Performance, Based on the Computational Fluid Dynamics Method: A Case Study of the National Sliding Centre of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics

The wind field plays an important role in the maintenance of large sport venues. Most wind field simulation research involves no quantitative analysis of the impacts of the wind environment on athletes’ safety and performance. Taking the National Sliding Centre (NSC) of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics as the research object, this paper conducts a wind field simulation study based on CFD, and innovatively explores the quantitative impact of building-scale wind environment characteristics on micro-athletes’ wind resistance and performance for the first time. First, an NSC model and a human body model of athletes are constructed and simplified. Grid independence verification is carried out, and the grid is divided and optimized. Second, wind environment simulation under different climatic conditions is completed, based on CFD technology. The defined wind speed dispersion indexes are calculated. The characteristics of the wind field outside the venue is quantitatively analyzed. Third, we define and calculate the main influencing parameters on athletes’ competition performance. The impacts of the wind field on micro-athletes’ performance are quantified. With a gradual increase in wind level (3.125, 3.5, 4.5, 5.5, 6.5, 7.5, 8.229), the optimized sliding route can reduce the air resistance by 0.2607 N, 0.3415 N, 0.4600 N, 0.6469 N, 0.9283 N, 1.1741 N, and 1.4535 N, which can improve the athletes’ competition results by 0.02 s, 0.03 s, 0.04 s, 0.06 s, 0.09 s, 0.11 s, and 0.14 s, respectively. This paper provides methodological support for exploring the mechanism of athlete performance from the perspective of a building-scale environment.