Nardecchia, F; Mattoni, B; Burattini, C and Bisegna, F (2020) The impact of humidity on vortex creation around isolated buildings. Building Research & Information, 48(5), pp. 551-571. ISSN 0961-3218
Abstract
The effect of humidity on the climatic conditions and the turbulence around an isolated building has not been yet investigated in literature. This paper analyses the simultaneous effect of architectural and environmental parameters on the vortex creation around a building, focusing on the impact of relative humidity. Sixty-four 3D computational fluid dynamics simulations have been performed, coupling 4 values of inlet velocity, air temperature, solar radiation and building height with 4 values of relative humidity. Results demonstrated that the inclusion of humidity in the simulations has an impact on the vortex creation. Differences in values and trends of the vortex dimensions (H c, X c, and L c) were obtained compared to previous studies where relative humidity was not considered. The highest percentage difference between the two studies regards the building height, where the addition of relative humidity made the X c value decrease by up to 56%. Among the analysed environmental parameters, building height has the higher impact on the characteristics of the vortex, followed by air velocity. The results have been compared with the analytic formula of the ASHRAE Handbook. Cubic mathematical equations have been developed correlating the vortex dimensions with building height, air velocity and relative humidity.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | building geometry; cfd; humidity; simulation; urban analysis; ventilation |
| Index terms: | ventilation, turbulence, relative humidity, climatic condition, geometry, solar radiation, coupling, building height, air temperature, computational fluid dynamics, humidity, dimension |
| Subjects: | systems engineering, environmental engineering, building performance, climate science, mathematical modelling, air quality, fluid mechanics, health monitoring assessment and metrics, energy systems, modelling and simulation |
| Topics: | Sustainability, Health and Safety, Engineering Principles, Research Practice, Digital Applications, Design Practice |
| Descriptive scope: | 3 PCA |
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