Thermal comfort performance prediction method using sports center layout images in several cold cities based on CNN

Abstract

Sports centers are core spaces for urban sports and fitness, and reasonable layout of large public buildings can alleviate urban climate issues. But the adverse effects of planning and layout and surrounding urban microclimate on the thermal comfort of outdoor activity space are rarely considered. In this study, an EnergyPlus and Openfoam collaborative computing platform was constructed to calculate the universal thermal climate index of the outdoor space of sports center. By comparing the simulation results of sports centers in three severely cold cities, improving the wind environment of the site's microclimate was found to be key in improving thermal comfort, and the hours of overall site thermal comfort increased mainly in spring and autumn. In this paper, a design method combining numerical simulations and a convolutional neural network was proposed, which can effectively predict the thermal comfort performance of affected sites. The application of this prediction method to the design of the Yingkou Sports Center increased the hours of overall site thermal comfort by 15.01% compared with the original scheme. Synthesizing the results and methods of this study can provide an effective reference and analysis tool for the overall environmental performance of urban areas.