Urban microclimate modelling tools

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modelling provides information on climatic variables at high resolution and the two-way relationship between urban features and climatic conditions. This information is useful to evaluate various planning interventions and design strategies for a specific purpose such as Outdoor Thermal Comfort (OTC).

CFD tools such as ENVI-met and ANSYS Fluent are often used for microclimate modelling and thus, outdoor thermal comfort (OTC) assessment. Selecting the appropriate tools depends on the purpose of the study and research questions. Some studies require more than one tool depending on the level of complexity of the problems they are assessing.

This report by Ayu Sukma Adelia, Dr Ido Nevat, Dr Juan Angel Acero, Li, Shiying, and Lea Ruefenacht from Cooling Singapore, explains the needs of using the combination of two CFD tools (ENVI-met and ANSYS Fluent) to model the outdoor thermal comfort (OTC) performance of various cooling strategies by using the Physiological Equivalent Temperature (PET) as the OTC performance index.

This report provides a systematic comparison of the outputs generated from two different tools. The exploratory framework for comparison is explained in detail, including meshing methods, simulation parameters, post-processing, and statistical analysis.

For full details read the report “Tool comparison for urban microclimate modelling - ENVI-met and ANSYS Fluent”.