Study on Detailed Air Flows in Urban Areas Using GIS Data in aVector Format and a CFDModel

Abstract: In this study, detailed air flow characteristics in an urban areas were analyzed using GIS data and a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model. For this, a building construction algorithm optimized for Geographic Information System (GIS) data with a vector format (Los Angeles region imagery acquisition consortium 2 geographic information system, LARIAC2 GIS) was used. In the LARIAC2 GIS data, building vertices were expressed as latitude and longitude. Using the model buildings constructed by the algorithm as the surface boundary data in the CFD model, we performed numerical simulations for two building-congested areas in Los Angeles using inflow information provided by California Air Resources Board. Comparing with the inflow, there was a marked difference in wind speed and direction within the target areas, which was mainly caused by the secondarily induced local circulations such as street-canyon vortices, horse-shoe vortices, and recirculation zones. In street canyons parallel to the inflow direction, wind speed increased due to a channeling effect and, in street canyons perpendicular to the inflow direction, vertically well developed vortices were induced. In front of a building, a horse-shoe vortex was developed near the surface and, behind a building, a recirculation zone was developed. Near the surface in the areas where the secondarily induced local circulations, wind speed remarkably increased. Overall, wind direction little (largely) changed at the areas where wind speed largely increased (decreased)