WEATHER EFFECTS ON HUMAN COMFORT: THE CASE OF AN URBAN BLOCK IN KRASNOYARSK

Abstract

Ensuring the necessary level of human comfort is an important requirement for the modern organization of urban space. Human comfort is determined by both external weather conditions and the local processes of heat and mass transfer occurring in the urban environment. Our research aims to analyze the formation of human comfort conditions for an urban block in the city of Krasnoyarsk by means of computational fluid dynamics methods. Numerical modeling of heat transfer and aerodynamic processes was carried out based on the microscale mathematical model of urban atmosphere using the inelastic approximation. Human comfort was assessed on the basis of bioclimatic indices calculated from the fields of physical variables. Results of numerical modeling of the urban environment show that the temperature and wind regimes in a built-up area are unsteady and depend on solar radiation dynamics, specific to the season and cloudiness conditions. Bioclimatic indices are affected not only by temperature rise but also by an increase in the air velocity, both induced by solar radiation. This creates competing multidirectional trends of thermal impacts on humans. High-rise buildings form stable local areas of high wind velocity. These areas can contribute to human comfort in hot summer weather, but reduce the comfort level in the winter.  The obtained numerical simulation results demonstrate that solar radiation dynamics affect local human comfort along with the urban block geometry.