Modelling 'Buildings In Use' effects on heterogeneous turbulent sensible heat

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Session 2 Paper 2, University College London, 16-17 April 2015

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The effects of buildings-in-use on local conditions within urban environments are significant. One key mechanism relates to the generation of additional mechanical and thermal turbulence. In recent years, high-resolution urban Large Eddy Simulation (LES) modelling has been implemented due to the progress of high performance computing. LES can so far depict ‘realistic’ patterns of mechanical turbulence and ‘idealistic’ patterns of thermal turbulence from homogeneous sensible heat flux distribution over buildings.

The numerical method described here couples an urban outdoor-indoor multi-patch energy balance model with LES. This calculates a more ‘realistic’ representation of thermal turbulences over urban districts through heterogeneous sensible heat distribution. This approach is informative for local temperatures, air pollution, gusts and other weather related hazards, which impact on building energy and human health.