Abstract
In this document, the thermal effect of a heat island upon an urban area and its surrounding low-rise buildings is analyzed with the building thermal simulation program EnergyPlus and its EnergyPlus weather files (EPW). By using a top-down approach, a simplified numerical model is developed, which is used to simulate the urban heat island effect, and that deals with the performance of various cooling methods according to the physical, urban, and climatic characteristics of the urban site. The calculated results of outdoor air temperature considering the heat island effect achieve good agreement with the already-published results. Then, different methods of shading and cooling, varying physical values such as urban thermal transmittance, and urban thermal absorption are applied in order to find the most influencing feature upon the indoor temperature drop into a simulation loop. With this, it is found that a maximum average decrease of indoor temperature of 5.1 °C can be achieved. Furthermore, carrying out a sensitivity analysis, it is found that the albedo of both building surface and urban layout is the most influencing parameter onto the indoor thermal comfort. With this, it is expected to have a reliable model that helps to understand the urban heat island effect in a simple and cheap manner and in terms of the indoor thermal comfort of its surrounding buildings.
Highlights
The so-called urban heat island (UHI) is a phenomenon that grows every day in amount and intensity
Consequences of the UHI are transferred onto the surrounding buildings, which are affected in their indoor environment, generally by an increase in indoor temperature: Use of cooling methods such as fans and air-conditioning (AC) systems are required to maintain acceptable living conditions [1]
[19,20,21,22,23,24], even calibrating theirasaccuracy a UHImanner context upon numerical model developed to are calculate aninput inputin dataset that is used in aEnergyPlus, some of hereby these data taken as an hourly manner upon simplified numerical model developed hereby to calculate an input dataset that is used in EnergyPlus, calculating the hourly indoor thermal comfort conditions of the surrounding buildings
Summary
The so-called urban heat island (UHI) is a phenomenon that grows every day in amount and intensity. This phenomenon comprises the increase of the local air temperature, the indirect solar radiation, and other physical characteristics that imply thermal discomfort upon the inhabitants. The phenomenon of UHI onto a metropolitan area consists in “more released anthropogenic heat, a higher blockage effect against urban ventilation, a higher absorption of solar radiation due to the implementation of artificial materials, and eventually a reduced long-wave emission to sky due to the blockage effect of buildings” [2]. Authors have found that the UHI effect, by increasing the indoor air temperature and sometimes the relative humidity of the immediate buildings, produces a growth of indirect CO2 emissions [3].
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