CityFFD/CityBEM – Modeling Urban Microclimate, Thermal, and Energy Performances

Abstract

Urban microclimate and building energy models have been developed to address the increasing concerns over thermal and wind comfort and building energy consumption due to climate change. Modeling urban scale problems is computationally extensive. In this study, we developed an integrated simulation model by combining CityFFD (City Fast Fluid Dynamics), an urban-scale computational fluid dynamics model for microclimate modeling, and CityBEM (City Building Energy Model), an urban building energy model with a library of 1700 building archetypes for facilitating urban model creation. Local aerodynamics and heat transfer information are exchanged between both models at each time step. Graphics processing unit computing is also applied for CFD simulation speedup. The simulation of a real urban area is validated to demonstrate its performance. Keywords: CityFFD, CityBEM, Urban microclimate, Building energy performance, Integration.