The Influence of Wind Effects on Street Canyon Width at the Pedestrian Level in Iraq

Abstract

High-rise buildings and other low-level buildings influence on the pedestrian-level wind (PLW) environment quality especially in street width, wind velocity, and wind direction. The study investigates the design that creating different street width dimensions based on the analysis of the wind conditions. The wind around buildings may create uncomfortable zones and dangerous problems in cities and would lead to the inconvenience to the occupants of high or low buildings. In spite of large numbers of on-going and previous research, the results of scientific research haven’t yet been quite enough on residential projects in the hot-dry climate of Iraq. The airflow around two or more buildings it is even more complicated than individual buildings, a recirculating wind flow will happen in the street canyon through the buildings. As well, wind characteristics will be formed the disturbance level to the occupants of pedestrian regions. This paper takes the residential building as a case study in Najaf-Iraq and applies quantitative methods to enhance pedestrian-level wind on street canyon through using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation analysis. The results of this study revealed that the effects of building height to street width aspect ratios (H/W) on the pedestrian-level wind and presented the comfortable zone between the residential buildings in Iraq.