The impact of humidity on vortex creation around isolated buildings

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...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Building research and information : the international journal of research, development and demonstration development and demonstration, 2020-07, Vol.48 (5), p.551-571
Main Authors: Nardecchia, Fabio, Mattoni, Benedetta, Burattini, Chiara, Bisegna, Fabio
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aerodynamics
Air temperature
building geometry
Buildings
CFD
Climate effects
Climatic conditions
Computational fluid dynamics
Computer applications
Computer simulation
Environmental effects
Fluid dynamics
Fluid flow
Humidity
Hydrodynamics
Parameters
Relative humidity
simulation
Solar radiation
Turbulence
urban analysis
Velocity
Ventilation
Vortices
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Summary: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.
ISSN:0961-3218
1466-4321
DOI:10.1080/09613218.2019.1661762