Thermal bioclimate in idealized urban street canyons in Campinas, Brazil

Among several urban design parameters, the height-to-width ratio (H/W) and orientation are important parameters strongly affecting thermal conditions in cities. This paper quantifies changes in thermal comfort due to typical urban canyon configurations in Campinas, Brazil, and presents urban guidelines concerning H/W ratios and green spaces to adapt urban climate change. The study focuses on thermal comfort issues of humans in urban areas and performs evaluation in terms of physiologically equivalent temperature (PET), based on long-term data. Meteorological data of air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and solar radiation over a 7-year period (2003–2010) were used. A 3D street canyon model was designed with RayMan Pro software to simulate the influence of urban configuration on urban thermal climate. The following configurations and setups were used. The model canyon was 500 m in length, with widths 9, 21, and 44 m. Its height varied in steps of 2.5 m, from 5 to 40 m. The canyon could be rotated in steps of 15°. The results show that urban design parameters such as width, height, and orientation modify thermal conditions within street canyons. A northeast–southwest orientation can reduce PET during daytime more than other scenarios. Forestry management and green areas are recommended to promote shade on pedestrian areas and on façades, and to improve bioclimate thermal stress, in particular for H/W ratio less than 0.5. The method and results can be applied by architects and urban planners interested in developing responsive guidelines for urban climate issues.     

Effect of asymmetrical street canyons on pedestrian thermal comfort in warm-humid climate of Cuba

Walkability and livability in cities can be enhanced by creating comfortable environments in the streets. The profile of an urban street canyon has a substantial impact on outdoor thermal conditions at pedestrian level. This paper deals with the effect of asymmetrical street canyon profiles, common in the historical centre of Camagüey, Cuba, on outdoor thermal comfort. Temporal-spatial analyses are conducted using the Heliodon2 and the RayMan model, which enable the generation of accurate predictions about solar radiation and thermal conditions of urban spaces, respectively. On these models, urban settings are represented by asymmetrical street canyons with five different height-to-width ratios and four street axis orientations (N-S, NE-SW, E-W, SE-NW). Results are evaluated for daytime hours across the street canyon, by means of the physiologically equivalent temperature (PET index) which allows the evaluation of the bioclimatic conditions of outdoor environments. Our findings revealed that high profiles (façades) located on the east-facing side of N-S streets, on the southeast-facing side of NE-SW streets, on the south-facing side of E-W street, and on the southwest-facing side of SE-NW streets, are recommended to reduce the total number of hours under thermal stress. E-W street canyons are the most thermally stressed ones, with extreme PET values around 36 °C. Deviating from this orientation ameliorates the heat stress with reductions of up to 4 h in summer. For all analysed E-W orientations, only about one fifth of the street can be comfortable, especially for high aspect ratios (H/W > 3). Optimal subzones in the street are next to the north side of the E-W street, northwest side of the NE-SW street, and southwest side of the SE-NW street. Besides, when the highest profile is located on the east side of N-S streets, then the subzone next to the east-facing façade is recommendable for pedestrians. The proposed urban guidelines enable urban planners to create and renovate urban spaces which are more efficient in diminishing pedestrian thermal stress.     

A Laboratory Model for the Flow in Urban Street Canyons Induced by Bottom Heating

Water tank experiments are carried out to investigate the convection flow induced by bottom heating and the effects of the ambient wind on the flow in non-symmetrical urban street canyons based on the PIV (Particle Image Visualization) technique. Fluid experiments show that with calm ambient wind,the flows in the street canyon are completely driven by thermal force, and the convection can reach the upper atmosphere of the street canyon. Horizontal and vertical motions also appear above the roofs of the buildings. These are the conditions which favor the exchange of momentum and air mass between the street canyon and its environment. More than two vortices are induced by the convection, and the complex circulation pattern will vary with time in a wider street canyon. However， in a narrow street canyon， just one vortex appears. With a light ambient wind, the bottom heating and the associated convection result in just one main vortex. As the ambient wind speed increases, the vortex becomes more organized and its center shifts closer to the leeward building.     

Effects of building-roof cooling on flow and air temperature in urban street canyons

The effects of building-roof cooling on flow and air temperature in 3D urban street canyons are numerically investigated using a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model. The aspect ratios of the building and street canyon considered are unity. For investigating the building-roof cooling effects, the building-roof temperatures are systematically changed. The traditional flow pattern including a portal vortex appears in the spanwise canyon. Compared with the case of the control run, there are minimal differences in flow pattern in the cases in which maximum building-roof cooling is considered. However, as the building roof becomes cooler, the mean kinetic energy increases and the air temperature decreases in the spanwise canyon. Building-roof cooling suppresses the upward and inward motions above the building roof, resultantly increasing the horizontal velocity near the roof level. The increase in wind velocity above the roof level intensifies the secondarily driven vortex circulation as well as the inward (outward) motion into (out of) the spanwise canyon. Finally, building-roof cooling reduces the air temperature in the spanwise canyon, supplying much relatively cool air from the streamwise canyon into the spanwise canyon.     

城市街道峡谷对称性对内部气流场的影响研究

应用雷诺应力湍流模型,模拟了不同高度比的城市街道峡谷的气流场。结果表明:峡谷的对称性对其内部气流场有显著影响。前高后低型峡谷下部为逆时针旋涡,上部为顺时针旋涡,峡谷越深,流场发展的越充分;峡谷内部墙面存在明显的驻点。前低后高型峡谷只存在一个大的顺时针旋涡,随着峡谷的加深,内部气流速率有减小的趋势;峡谷达到一定深度后出现驻点。对称型峡谷内部形成了顺时针旋涡,强度不大;随着峡谷的加深,内部流场转为一顺一反2个旋涡的二元结构;仅当峡谷很深时才出现明显驻点。前低后高型峡谷的气流场形式更有利于污染物的迁移、扩散,在城市规划中应尽量结合主导风向设计这类建筑布局。     

Scalar fluxes from urban street canyons. Part I: Laboratory simulation

Flow over urban surfaces depends on surface morphology and interaction with the boundary layer above. However, the effect of the flow on scalar fluxes is hard to quantify. The naphthalene sublimation technique was used to quantify scalar vertical fluxes out of a street canyon under neutral conditions. For an array of eight canyons with aspect ratio H/W=0.75 (here, H is building height and W is the street width), increased flux was observed in the first two or three canyons for moderate and low roughness upstream. This is consistent with predictions of the length scale for initial adjustment of flow to an urban canopy. The flux was constant after the initial adjustment region and thus dependent only on local geometry. For a street canyon in the equilibrium part of the array, each facet of the street canyon was coated with naphthalene to simulate scalar release from street, walls and roof, to evaluate the effect of street canyon geometry on fluxes for H/W=0.25, 0.6, 1 and 2. Fluxes from the roof and downstream wall were considerably larger than fluxes from the street and upstream wall, and only the flux from the downstream wall exhibited a simple decrease with H/W. For each H/W there was a monotonic decrease between downstream wall, street and upstream wall transfer. This suggests that flow decelerates around the recirculation region in the lee of the upstream building, i.e. a recirculating jet rather than a symmetrical vortex. The addition of a second source within the street canyon resulted in reduced fluxes from each facet for H/W>0.25, due to increased concentration of naphthalene in the canyon air.     

城市街谷几何结构对街谷内流场及污染物浓度场影响的数值模拟

利用数值模拟方法研究了微尺度街道峡谷范围内街谷几何结构及街道两侧建筑物高度对称性对街谷内流场及机动车排放污染物扩散规律的影响。结果表明:当街道峡谷高宽比>2.1时,街谷内的流场结构由一个完整的垂直涡旋变为上下两个反向运动的强弱不同的垂直涡旋。各类型街谷内污染物扩散水平从强到弱依次为迎风面建筑物高度大于背风面建筑物高度的街道峡谷,迎风面建筑物高度小于背风面建筑物高度的街道峡谷;平行型街道峡谷。     

Numerical studies on flow fields around buildings in an Urban street canyon and cross-road

The questions on how vortices are constructed and on the relationship between the flow patterns and concentration distributions in real street canyons are the most pressing questions in pollution control studies. In this paper, the very large eddy simulation (VLES) and large eddy simulation (LES) are applied to calculate the flow and pollutant concentration fields in an urban street canyon and a cross-road respectively. It is found that the flow separations are not only related to the canyon aspect ratios, but also with the flow velocities and wall temperatures. And the turbulent dispersions are so strongly affected by the flow fields that the pollutant concentration distributions can be distinguished from the different aspect ratios, flow velocities and wall temperatures.     

Pollutant Concentrations in Street Canyons of Different Aspect Ratio with Avenues of Trees for Various Wind Directions

This study summarizes the effects of avenues of trees in urban street canyons on traffic pollutant dispersion. We describe various wind-tunnel experiments with different tree-avenue models in combination with variations in street-canyon aspect ratio W/H (with W the street-canyon width and H the building height) and approaching wind direction. Compared to tree-free street canyons, in general, higher pollutant concentrations are found. Avenues of trees do not suppress canyon vortices, although the air ventilation in canyons is hindered significantly. For a perpendicular wind direction, increases in wall-average and wall-maximum concentrations at the leeward canyon wall and decreases in wall-average concentrations at the windward wall are found. For oblique and perpendicular wind directions, increases at both canyon walls are obtained. The strongest effects of avenues of trees on traffic pollutant dispersion are observed for oblique wind directions for which also the largest concentrations at the canyon walls are found. Thus, the prevailing assumption that attributes the most harmful dispersion conditions to a perpendicular wind direction does not hold for street canyons with avenues of trees. Furthermore, following dimensional analysis, an estimate of the normalized wall-maximum traffic pollutant concentration in street canyons with avenues of trees is derived.     

A street thermal environment study in summer by the mobile transect technique

To estimate the impact of street characteristics on the thermal environment in an urban street canyon in a hot and humid region, transect data were used to analyze the relation between three factors (urban green ratio, building ratio, and height-to-width ratio) and air temperature in two streets in Taichung City, Taiwan. In this study, air temperature data were collected by transects at four different level heights (1, 2, 3, and 4?m height) in two streets; meanwhile, the use of three street characteristics data calculated by geographic information system (GIS) data which can represent the environment conditions of 34 measured locations. The analysis results shows that the air temperature significantly correlated with height-to-width ratio (r?=?0.481), green ratio (r?=?0.729), and building ratio (r?=?0.654), respectively, at night. In conclusion, this study demonstrates that increasing the green ratio and decreasing the building density are important strategies to mitigate urban warming and to create a comfortable thermal environment.     

The role of radiative-convective interaction in creating the microclimate of urban street canyons

An approximate sky view factor (SVF) has been developed, which is capable of estimating the mean rate of net longwave radiant energy loss from urban street canyons. Reduced scale models of typical canyon geometries were used in outdoor tests to verify the predictions of radiant fluxes obtained using the proposed SVF. Air-surface temperature differences from the scale models are used together with hypothesized within-canyon airflow patterns to determine some quantitative characteristics of the wind field in canyons. Simple correlations are proposed for the relationship between mean in-canyon and pedestrian-level flow speeds on the one hand, and the ambient (above roof-level) wind speed on the other hand. As expected, the height/width ratio of a canyon controls the form and magnitude of the flow within.     

On the Impact of Trees on Dispersion Processes of Traffic Emissions in Street Canyons

Wind-tunnel studies of dispersion processes of traffic exhaust in urban street canyons with tree planting were performed and tracer gas concentrations using electron capture detection (ECD) and flow fields using laser Doppler velocimetry (LDV) were measured. It was found that tree planting reduces the air exchange between street canyons and the ambience. In comparison to treeless street canyons, higher overall pollutant concentrations and lower flow velocities were measured. In particular, for perpendicular approaching wind, markedly higher concentrations at the leeward canyon wall and slightly lower concentrations at the windward canyon wall were observed. Furthermore, a new approach is suggested to model porous vegetative structures such as tree crowns for small-scale wind-tunnel applications. The approach is based on creating different model tree crown porosities by incorporating a certain amount of wadding material into a specified volume. A significant influence of the crown porosity on pollutant concentrations was found for high degrees of porosity, however, when it falls below a certain threshold, no further changes in pollutant concentrations were observed.     

Simulation of Meteorological Fields Within and Above Urban and Rural Canopies with a Mesoscale Model

Accurate simulation of air quality at neighbourhood scales (on order of 1-km horizontal grid spacing) requires detailed meteorological fields inside the roughness sub-layer (RSL). Since the assumptions of the roughness approach, used by most of the mesoscale models, are unsatisfactory at this scale, a detailed urban and rural canopy parameterisation, called DA-SM2-U, is developed inside the Penn State/NCAR Mesoscale Model (MM5) to simulate the meteorological fields within and above the urban and rural canopies. DA-SM2-U uses the drag-force approach to represent the dynamic and turbulent effects of the buildings and vegetation, and a modified version of the soil model SM2-U, called SM2-U(3D), to represent the thermodynamic effects of the canopy elements. The turbulence length scale is also modified inside the canopies. SM2-U(3D) assesses the sensible and latent heat fluxes from rural and urban surfaces in each of the computational layers inside the canopies by considering the shadowing effect, the radiative trapping by the street canyons, and the storage heat flux by the artificial surfaces. DA-SM2-U is tested during one simulated day above the city of Philadelphia, U.S.A. It is shown that DA-SM2-U is capable of simulating the important features observed in the urban and rural RSL, as seen in the vertical profiles of the shear stress, turbulent kinetic energy budget components, eddy diffusivity, potential air temperature, and specific humidity. Within the canopies, DA-SM2-U simulates the decrease of the wind speed inside the dense canopies, the skirting of the flow around the canopy blocks, warmer air inside the vegetation canopy than above open areas during the night and conversely during the day, and constantly warmer air inside the urban canopy. The comparison with measurements shows that the surface air temperature above rural and urban areas is better simulated by DA-SM2-U than by the `standard version' of MM5.     

An Improved Three-Dimensional Simulation of the Diurnally Varying Street-Canyon Flow

The impact of diurnal variations of the heat fluxes from building and ground surfaces on the fluid flow and air temperature distribution in street canyons is numerically investigated using the PArallelized Large-eddy Simulation Model (PALM). Simulations are performed for a 3 by 5 array of buildings with canyon aspect ratio of one for two clear summer days that differ in atmospheric instability. A detailed building energy model with a three-dimensional raster-type geometry—Temperature of Urban Facets Indoor-Outdoor Building Energy Simulator (TUF-IOBES)—provides urban surface heat fluxes as thermal boundary conditions for PALM. In vertical cross-sections at the centre of the spanwise canyon the mechanical forcing and the horizontal streamwise thermal forcing at roof level outweigh the thermal forces from the heated surfaces inside the canyon in defining the general flow pattern throughout the day. This results in a dominant canyon vortex with a persistent speed, centered at a constant height. Compared to neutral simulations, non-uniform heating of the urban canyon surfaces significantly modifies the pressure field and turbulence statistics in street canyons. Strong horizontal pressure gradients were detected in streamwise and spanwise canyons throughout the day, and which motivate larger turbulent velocity fluctuations in the horizontal directions rather than in the vertical direction. Canyon-averaged turbulent kinetic energy in all non-neutral simulations exhibits a diurnal cycle following the insolation on the ground in both spanwise and streamwise canyons, and it is larger when the canopy bottom surface is paved with darker materials and the ground surface temperature is higher as a result. Compared to uniformly distributed thermal forcing on urban surfaces, the present analysis shows that realistic non-uniform thermal forcing can result in complex local airflow patterns, as evident, for example, from the location of the vortices in horizontal planes in the spanwise canyon. This study shows the importance of three-dimensional simulations with detailed thermal boundary conditions to explore the heat and mass transport in an urban area.     

Scalar Fluxes from Urban Street Canyons Part II: Model

A practical model is developed for the vertical flux of a scalar, such as heat, from an urban street canyon that accounts for variations of the flow and turbulence with canyon geometry. The model gives the magnitude and geometric dependence of the flux from each facet of the urban street canyon, and is shown to agree well with wind-tunnel measurements described in Part I. The geometric dependence of the flux from an urban street canyon is shown to be determined by two physical processes. Firstly, as the height-to-width ratio of the street canyon increases, so does the roughness length and displacement height of the surface. This increase leads to a reduction in the wind speed in the inertial sublayer above the street canyons. Since the speed of the circulations in the street are proportional to this inertial sublayer wind speed, the flux then reduces with the inertial sublayer wind speed. This process is dominant at low height-to-width ratios. Secondly, the character of the circulations within the street canyon also varies as the height-to-width ratio increases. The flow in the street is partitioned into a recirculation region and a ventilated region. When the street canyon has high height-to-width ratios the recirculation region occupies the whole street canyon and the wind speeds within the street are low. This tendency decreases the flux at high height-to-width ratios. These processes tend to reduce the flux density from the individual facets of the street canyon, when compared to the flux density from a horizontal surface of the same material. But the street canyon has an increased total surface area, which means that the total flux from the street canyon is larger than from a horizontal surface. The variations in scalar flux from an urban street canyon with geometry is over a factor of two, which means that the physical mechanisms responsible should be incorporated into energy balance models for urban areas.     

Large-Eddy Simulation of Flow and Pollutant Dispersion in High-Aspect-Ratio Urban Street Canyons with Wall Model

A large-eddy simulation (LES) with a one-equation subgrid-scale (SGS) model was developed to investigate the flow field and pollutant dispersion inside street canyons of high aspect ratio (AR). A 1/7th power-law wall model was implemented near rigid walls to mitigate the demanding near-wall resolution requirements in LES. This LES model had been extensively validated against experimental results for street canyons of AR = 1 and 2 before it was applied to the cases of AR = 3 and 5. A ground-level passive pollutant line source, located in the middle of the street, was used to simulate vehicular emissions. Three and five vertically aligned primary recirculations were developed in the street canyons of AR 3 and 5, respectively. The ground-level mean wind speed was less than 0.5% of the free stream value, which makes it difficult for the pollutant to be transported upward for removal. High pollutant concentration and variance were found near the buildings where the air flow is upwards. It was found that the velocity fluctuation, pollutant concentration and variance were all closely related to the interactions between the primary recirculations and/or the free surface layer. Several quantities, which are non-linear functions of AR, were introduced to quantify the air quality in street canyons of different configurations.     

A numerical simulation scheme for the albedo of city street canyons

A numerical scheme is described for the calculation of effective albedo values of long city street canyons. The method is based on a generalization of the radiation model for inclined surfaces recently presented by Brühl and Zdunkowski (1983). Calculated albedo values are compared with Aida's (1982) experimentally determined results. It is found that experiment and theory are in reasonable and in some cases in excellent agreement. Additional results obtained by varying the geometry of the street canyon as well as the surface reflectivities are shown to demonstrate the versatility of the calculation scheme.     

Transfer processes in a simulated urban street canyon

The transfer processes within and above a simulated urban street canyon were investigated in a generic manner. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) was used to aid understanding and to produce some simple operational parameterisations. In this study we addressed specifically the commonly met situation where buoyancy effects arising from elevated surface temperatures are not important, i.e. when mechanical forces outweigh buoyancy forces. In a geophysical context this requires that some suitably defined Richardson number is small. From an engineering perspective this is interpreted as the important case when heat transfer within and above urban street canyons is by forced convection. Surprisingly, this particular scenario (for which the heat transfer coefficient between buildings and the flow is largest), has been less well studied than the situation where buoyancy effects are important. The CFD technique was compared against wind-tunnel experiments to provide model evaluation. The height-to-width ratio of the canyon was varied through the range 0.5–5 and the flow was normal to the canyon axis. By setting the canyon’s facets to have the same or different temperatures or to have a partial temperature distribution, simulations were carried out to investigate: (a) the influence of geometry on the flow and mixing within the canyon and (b) the exchange processes within the canyon and across the canyon top interface. Results showed that the vortex-type circulation and turbulence developed within the canyon produced a temperature distribution that was, essentially, spatially uniform (apart from a relatively thin near-wall thermal boundary layer) This allowed the temperatures within the street canyon to be specified by just one value T _can , the canyon temperature. The variation of T _can with wind speed, surface temperatures and geometry was extensively studied. Finally, the exchange velocity u _E across the interface between the canyon and the flow above was calculated based on a heat flux balance within the canyon and between the canyon and the flow above. Results showed that u _E was approximately 1% of a characteristic wind velocity above the street canyon. The problem of radiative exchange is not addressed but it can, of course, be introduced analytically, or computationally, when necessary.     

An Urban Surface Exchange Parameterisation for Mesoscale Models

A scheme to represent the impact of urban buildings on airflow in mesoscale atmospheric models is presented. In the scheme, the buildings are not explicitly resolved, but their effects on the grid-averaged variables are parameterised. An urban quarter is characterised by a horizontal building size, a street canyon width and a building density as a function of height. The module computes the impact of the horizontal (roof and canyon floor) and vertical (walls) surfaces on the wind speed, temperature and turbulent kinetic energy. The computation of the shortwave and longwave radiation, needed to compute the temperature of the urban surfaces, takes into account the shadowing and radiation trapping effects induced by the urban canyons. The computation of the turbulent length scales in the TKE equation is also modified to take into account the presence of the buildings.The parameterisation is introduced into a mesoscale model and tested in a bidimensional case of a city over flat terrain. The new parameterisation is shown to be able to reproduce the most important features observed in urban areas better than the traditional approach which is based only on the modification of the roughness length, thereby retaining the Monin–Obukhov similarity theory. The new surface exchange parameterisation is furthermore shown to have a strong impact on the dispersion characteristics of air pollutants in urban areas.     

Model of air flow and air pollution concentration in urban canyons

A model for the calculation of the turbulence flow field and air pollutant concentrations in urban canyons is developed. A two-dimensional set of hydrodynamical equations and a threedimensional diffusion equation are solved numerically with a personal computer. Different boundary conditions were investigated. Three flow regimes were found: without vortex, with one vortex, and with two vortexes, within an urban canyon. The influence of building density and wind speed components along the street was also investigated.