Ventilation in a group of courtyard buildings

Abstract

In the contemporary urban planning, the outdoor comfort is more and more relevant. As a matter of fact, in some Nations the microclimate design, and so, among the others, a quantification of the outdoor comfort is already compulsory, while in many others it is recommended. Various methods to quantify the outdoor comfort can be adopted (e.g., among the others, the PMV-Predicted Mean Vote, or the PET-Physiological Equivalent Temperature), but in every formulation the quantification of the wind velocity, otherwise referred to as ventilation, close to the buildings under study is needed. In this paper, the ventilation inside and outside a group of courtyard buildings is studied via numerical simulations with ENVI-met. ENVI-met is a three-dimensional microclimate model able to simulate the ventilation in an urban environment and the interaction of air flows with surfaces of different materials, with plants and with other typical elements of the built environment in a given climate. Results highlight the relevance of the mutual influence of buildings and of their dimensions in modelling the ventilation inside and outside a courtyard.

Outdoor Microclimate in Courtyard Buildings: Impact of Building Perimeter Configuration and Tree Density

“…and its turbulent phenomena [67]. Accuracy level and calibration of the tool are also reported in [77].…”

“…Outdoor microclimate maps (OMMs) are used to investigate their effects assuming air temperature, wind speed and PET as the most significant indicators [75,76]. To this end, the study makes use of the ENVI-met software (v 5.5), as the most used and reliable to simulate ventilation in urban environments, especially when it is necessary to consider the interaction of different surface materials, vegetation, and solar radiation with air flow and its turbulent phenomena [67]. Accuracy level and calibration of the tool are also reported in [77].…”

“…Fewer studies focus on airflows in courtyards to reduce heat stress, either indoor or outdoor [67][68][69][70]. The same limited attention is paid to the effect that the volume distribution on the borders may generate on courtyard outdoor thermal comfort, that is, the effect of building elevation features and the positioning of floor-to-ceiling gaps or access breaches.…”