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Building Simulation 2012, 5(2): 157-167 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12273-012-0079-2
Research Article | Issue | Published: 09 May 2012

A simplified method to predict the outdoor thermal environment in residential district

Show Author's Information Jie Ma,  Xiaofeng Li( ),  Yingxin Zhu
Department of Building Science, School of Architecture, Tsinghua university, Beijing 100084, China
Keywords:
numerical simulation, CFD, microclimate, solar radiation, outdoor environment
Cite this article:
Ma J, Li X, Zhu Y. A simplified method to predict the outdoor thermal environment in residential district. Building Simulation, 2012, 5(2): 157-167. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12273-012-0079-2
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Abstract Full text About this article

The outdoor thermal environment is very important to pedestrian’s comfort and safety. Under the fast development of urbanization it is essential to develop a quick assessment method to assist design. The present paper introduces a simplified simulation system consisting of convection, conduction and radiation to predict the outdoor thermal environment. A double mesh system for radiation simulation is used to reduce the amount of calculation and storage, meanwhile a thermal response factor method is introduced to calculate the transient heat conduction process. By taking advantage of the thermal response factor method, two kinds of simplified coupling methods are proposed. To validate the simulation system, a filed measurement was carried out and the simulation results are in compliance with the experiment. The simulation results show that the error caused by simplification is acceptable in most conditions, and a lot of coupling calculation amount could be saved.


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About this article

A simplified method to predict the outdoor thermal environment in residential district

Show Author's information Jie Ma, Xiaofeng Li( ), Yingxin Zhu
Department of Building Science, School of Architecture, Tsinghua university, Beijing 100084, China

Abstract

The outdoor thermal environment is very important to pedestrian’s comfort and safety. Under the fast development of urbanization it is essential to develop a quick assessment method to assist design. The present paper introduces a simplified simulation system consisting of convection, conduction and radiation to predict the outdoor thermal environment. A double mesh system for radiation simulation is used to reduce the amount of calculation and storage, meanwhile a thermal response factor method is introduced to calculate the transient heat conduction process. By taking advantage of the thermal response factor method, two kinds of simplified coupling methods are proposed. To validate the simulation system, a filed measurement was carried out and the simulation results are in compliance with the experiment. The simulation results show that the error caused by simplification is acceptable in most conditions, and a lot of coupling calculation amount could be saved.

Keywords: numerical simulation, CFD, microclimate, solar radiation, outdoor environment

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Publication history
Copyright

Publication history

Received: 03 December 2011
Revised: 02 March 2012
Accepted: 12 March 2012
Published: 09 May 2012
Issue date: June 2012

Copyright

© Tsinghua University Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012
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