Enhancement of Pedestrian Comfort with the help of Wind Corridors through CFD Simulation

Abstract

The exponential growth of earth’s temperature alongside the use of materials having high heat capacity, to cater the housing demands, brings about the need for significant cooling mechanisms to improve thermal comfort. Researchers have verified that the use of wind as a cooling agent is the most cost effective and efficient way to reduce the surface air temperature in the long run. This research is focused upon the development of wind corridor to increase the pedestrian thermal comfort for the hot and humid region of Lumbini Sanksritik Municipality by using CFD simulation (ANSYS Fluent). The research includes the simulation of base case scenario with the proposal of multiple solutions for the region to significantly improve the thermal comfort. ANSYS Fluent is used to simulate the plots modelled in SOLIDWORKS where the outputs primarily are obtained in the form of velocity vectors, pressure & velocity contours and velocity streamlines. The research shows that it is possible to have better air flow velocity and circulation than the base case by just following the simple building bylaws during the design process. This increase in flow velocity and improvement of wind circulation has been proven to increase the pedestrian thermal comfort of the region.