Abstract
Rapid population growth and urbanization have led to the development of high-density and high-rise structures around the world. Tall structures in proximity can negatively affect pedestrian comfort by directing strong winds to the ground near the structure. Pedestrian level wind (PLW) may affect local businesses/services, pedestrian comfort and in extreme cases jeopardizes pedestrian safety. The downtown portion of the City of Toronto (∼10 km2) was chosen as the study region due to the recent development of many high-rise structures. The region was split into 10 zones and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) was utilized to study the wind effects of the local building geometry and arrangements. Wind velocities were extracted from Computational Fluid Dynamics and coupled with historical meteorological data from Billy Bishop Airport. The coupled velocities from CFD were found to be within 20 and 5% RMSE, respectively, of the recorded data at the wind station for 85% of the sampled data. Wind velocities were then extracted at various elevations and coupled with meteorological weather data to generate real-time, historical, and statistical visualization of local wind fields. This study enables the prediction of real-time, historical, and statistical wind speeds, bearings at various elevations. Visualization of the flow field provides important insights for pedestrians, architects, engineers, and city planners regarding local wind speeds and identify problematic areas.
Highlights
Pedestrian Level Wind (PLW) typically refers to the wind speed at 1.5 m above the ground
This study aims to address the aforementioned challenges by (I) Full-scale Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation of Downtown Toronto by splitting the region into parts, the data is combined using geo-spatial coordinates, (II) All simulations are conducted for 36 Wind directions, with the windspeeds related to the nearest airport weather station, the data can be scaled with realtime and historical data, (III) CFD results can be compared to local weather stations within the study zone and can be matched in realtime, and (IV) Results at various elevations can be extracted from CFD and presented
Based on Historical High Wind Velocity Events discusses results during high wind velocity events, while CFD Results Based on Statistical Wind Data discusses results based on statistical winds
Summary
Pedestrian Level Wind (PLW) typically refers to the wind speed at 1.5 m above the ground (i.e., typical pedestrian height). Humidity, clothing, solar radiation and exposure time are factors that affect pedestrian comfort (Soligo et al (1998); Stathopoulos (2006)), this paper focuses purely on the magnitude of PLW wind velocity. People’s day-to-day activities and comfort can be affected by the magnitude of the PLW. A wind speed of up to 3.8m/s is considered the acceptable limit for standing, while a wind speed of 5.5 m/s is the limit for walking, running, or cycling. Wind speeds above these acceptable limits are likely to cause discomfort or unsafe conditions for pedestrians. Toronto city planner Jennifer Keesmat acknowledged that the city is aware of the issue in an article by Global News in 2014 and stated
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