Investigation on Air Ventilation within Idealised Urban Wind Corridors and the Influence of Structural Factors with Numerical Simulations

Abstract

Wind corridors are expected to be effective in alleviating the canopy urban heat island effect and air pollution. However, investigations on airflow characteristics within wind corridors, especially the influences of structural factors, are still limited. This current work performed numerical simulations on a group of idealised wind corridor models with different aspect ratios (ARs) and varying heights and/or widths along the corridors. Simulations revealed that the AR value had a vital influence on the wind speed, and an AR value of 0.1 facilitated the best ventilation conditions within the wind corridor. Structural variations along the corridor have a critical influence on ventilation, where the width contraction (contraction structure) and high-rise buildings (protrusion structure) would considerably weaken the wind speed within the corridors. The results suggested that wider and step-up structural design along the corridor should be encouraged in urban wind corridor planning, which would be helpful in promoting ventilation efficiency; but contraction structures should be prevented for primary wind corridor design.