Pedestrian wind environment around tall buildings

Abstract

Pedestrian-level wind conditions around tall buildings are described by examining the aerodynamics of the urban environment and the various wind comfort criteria established in the wind engineering field. Experimental and, possibly, computational assessment of pedestrian-level wind conditions in the urban environment are described in detail. Particular emphasis has been placed on the state of the art and the capabilities of Computational Wind Engineering to determine at least mean values of wind speeds in the vicinity of buildings in urban areas. An approach toward the establishment of an overall comfort index taking into account, in addition to wind speed, the temperature, and relative humidity in the urban area under consideration, is presented.