The Effects of the Layouts of Vegetation and Wind Flow in an Apartment Housing Complex to Mitigate Outdoor Microclimate Air Temperature

Mengyu Zhang, Woongkyoo Bae and Jeeyeop Kim
Additional contact information
Mengyu Zhang: Department of Urban Design and Studies, Chung-ang University, Seoul 06974, Korea
Woongkyoo Bae: Department of Urban Design and Studies, Chung-ang University, Seoul 06974, Korea
Jeeyeop Kim: Department of Architecture, Ajou University, Suwon 16499, Korea

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 11, 1-20

Abstract: Previous studies have demonstrated that vegetation and increased air flow can mitigate air temperature by employing numerical models, satellite remote sensing or Computational Fluid Dynamics simulations. This study aimed to examine how layouts of vegetation space and wind flow affect microclimate air temperature, which directly affects city dwellers’ thermal comfort in summer, in a real apartment housing complex in Seoul, South Korea. To do this, a Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes model was utilized, combined with a finite volume method CFD simulation, and which measured transpirational cooling effects of vegetation by comprehensively considering air humidity by transpiration, as well as wind flow of the surroundings, to reflect actual conditions of urban environments. Based on the computational model, nine scenarios including elevated building designs were simulated. The findings of this study are as follows: First, different layouts of vegetation and wind flow clearly affected microclimate air temperature in the housing complex. Second, when the total area of vegetation was the same, it was more effective to reduce air temperature by placing it in small units rather than concentrating it in one place, and placing small vegetation spaces close to buildings was better than locating them between buildings. Third, it was apparent that an elevated space works as a wind path, leading to increasing wind velocity. However, it was revealed that wind flow does not always positively affect hot temperatures.

Keywords: microclimate air temperature; thermal mitigation; CFD; urban heat island; vegetation; wind flow (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/11/3081/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/11/3081/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:11:p:3081-:d:235971

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().