EFFECTS OF ENVIRONMENTAL GEOMETRY ON WINDFLOW FOR ACTIVATING NATURAL VENTILATION IN BUILDINGS
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18754861Keywords:
Airflow patterns, Environmental geometry, Natural ventilation, Passive ventilation, Street geometry, Urban geometryAbstract
Natural ventilation is hugely reliant on microclimatic conditions of an environment. In urban setting, this is often influenced by wind movements and air temperatures. The correlation between building heights and their proximity to each other and presence of physical structures that form the urban geometric elements are known to influence the incoming and outgoing wind speeds. This in turn impacts on the quantity and quality of air available for wind driven natural or hybrid ventilation. In this paper, field studies were carried out on selected building and its immediate surroundings within Baze University Campus in Nigeria. This study aims to identify and evaluate the behaviors of air flow as well as analyze the impacts of environmental geometric elements on the natural ventilation potential within the environment. For this purpose, a field survey was conducted to generate data regarding the microclimatic conditions in the study area. The study utilized both observatory analysis and simulation to analyze and describe the conditions measured. The general conclusion is that the surrounding street elements like trees and landscaping structures prevail in the diversion and consequent reduction of wind speed needed for natural indoor ventilation.
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