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Convective heat transfer at exterior building surfaces has an impact on the design and performance of building components such as double-skin facades, solar collectors, solar chimneys and ventilated photovoltaic arrays, and also affects the thermal climate and cooling load in urban areas. In this study, an overview is given of existing correlations of the exterior convective heat transfer coefficient (CHTC) with the wind speed, indicating significant differences between these correlations. As an alternative to using existing correlations, the applicability of CFD to obtain forced CHTC correlations is evaluated, by considering a cubic building in an atmospheric boundary layer. Steady Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes simulations are performed and, instead of the commonly used wall functions, low-Reynolds number modelling (LRNM) is used to model the boundary-layer region for reasons of improved accuracy. The flow …