Outdoor environmental investigation of old communities during summer in hot summer and cold winter regions

Abstract

The outdoor physical environments of many old communities are unable to meet modern living requirements and require improvement urgently. This is especially true for communities in regions with extremely hot summers and cold winters, which may cause additional difficulties. This study used measurements and questionnaire data to investigate outdoor environment (the thermal, sound, light environments and air quality) and resident sensations in four such communities. Results revealed some key factors affecting outdoor environmental comfort, including summer shading, winter sunlight, air temperature, air quality, the sound environment and odour. The results also revealed that the main problems were noise, insufficient illumination and high air temperatures in summer, all of which had seriously affected comfort during outdoor activities. Specifically, noise values during the most unfavourable periods were between 57.4 and 80.6 dB(A), while average air temperatures were between 32.3°C and 35.8°C, and average illuminances were below 2.9 lx. As such, this paper proposes improvement measures such as sound barriers and greening. Further, we propose a method for prioritizing these factors for such improvements based on a combination of subjective and objective factors. This study provides data and technical references for the reconstruction of old communities in regions with hot summers and cold winters.

Application of polyhedral meshing strategy in indoor environment simulation: Model accuracy and computing time

“…The experimental data from literature was taken to quantitatively evaluate numerical accuracy. 7,33 Figure 3 shows the characteristics of these three types of meshes. The meshes near boundaries were refined, due to the existence of those gradients of air temperature and velocity.…”

“…CFD has a great potential in the engineering design of various environmental engineering applications, including urban design, indoor environment design and industrial devices. [4][5][6][7][8] However, there are still some limitations in engineering applications. For CFD designer, one of the most challenging and time-consuming issue is generating high-quality and complex meshes.…”

“…For CFD designer, one of the most challenging and time-consuming issue is generating high-quality and complex meshes. [4][5][6][7][8] If meshing quality is not satisfied, simulation accuracy and computing cost cannot be guaranteed. The widely used hexahedral/tetrahedral meshing methods have some disadvantages in computing accuracy and cost.…”