The role of paved surfaces in the Urban Heat Island phenomenon: Assessment of fundamental thermal parameters and finite element analysis for UHI mitigation

Nowadays the environmental issues and the climatic change play fundamental roles in the design of urban spaces. Our cities are growing in size, many times only following immediate needs without a long-term vision. Consequently, the sustainable development has become not only an ethical but also a strategic need: we can no longer afford an uncontrolled urban expansion. One serious effect of the territory industrialisation process is the increase of urban air and surfaces temperatures compared to the outlying rural surroundings. This difference in temperature is what constitutes an urban heat island (UHI). The purpose of this study is to provide a clarification on the role of urban surfacing materials in the thermal dynamics of an urban space, resulting in useful indications and advices in mitigating UHI. With this aim, 4 coloured concrete bricks were tested, measuring their emissivity and building up their heat release curves using infrared thermography. Two emissivity evaluation procedures were carried out and subsequently put in comparison. Samples performances were assessed, and the influence of the colour on the thermal behaviour was investigated. In addition, some external pavements were analysed. Albedo and emissivity parameters were evaluated in order to understand their thermal behaviour in different conditions. Surfaces temperatures were recorded in a one-day measurements campaign. ENVI-met software was used to simulate how the tested materials would behave in two typical urban scenarios: a urban canyon and a urban heat basin. Improvements they can carry to the urban microclimate were investigated. Emissivities obtained for the bricks ranged between 0.92 and 0.97, suggesting a limited influence of the colour on this parameter. Nonetheless, white concrete brick showed the best thermal performance, whilst the black one the worst; red and yellow ones performed pretty identical intermediate trends. De facto, colours affected the overall thermal behaviour. Emissivity parameter was measured in the outdoor work, getting (as expected) high values for the asphalts. Albedo measurements, conducted with a sunshine pyranometer, proved the improving effect given by the yellow paint in terms of solar reflection, and the bad influence of haze on the measurement accuracy. ENVI-met simulations gave a demonstration on the effectiveness in thermal improving of some tested materials. In particular, results showed good performances for white bricks and granite in the heat basin scenario, and painted concrete and macadam in the urban canyon scenario. These materials can be considered valuable solutions in UHI mitigation.

Impact of convective motions on pollutant dispersion in urban canyons: an analysis through RANS simulations

Since the majority of the population of the world lives in cities and that this number is expected to increase in the next years, one of the biggest challenges of the research is the determination of the risk deriving from high temperatures experienced in urban areas, together with improving responses to climate-related disasters, for example by introducing in the urban context vegetation or built infrastructures that can improve the air quality. In this work, we will investigate how different setups of the boundary and initial conditions set on an urban canyon generate different patterns of the dispersion of a pollutant. To do so we will exploit the low computational cost of Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) simulations to reproduce the dynamics of an infinite array of two-dimensional square urban canyons. A pollutant is released at the street level to mimic the presence of traffic. RANS simulations are run using the k-ɛ closure model and vertical profiles of significant variables of the urban canyon, namely the velocity, the turbulent kinetic energy, and the concentration, are represented. This is done using the open-source software OpenFOAM and modifying the standard solver simpleFoam to include the concentration equation and the temperature by introducing a buoyancy term in the governing equations. The results of the simulation are validated with experimental results and products of Large-Eddy Simulations (LES) from previous works showing that the simulation is able to reproduce all the quantities under examination with satisfactory accuracy. Moreover, this comparison shows that despite LES are known to be more accurate albeit more expensive, RANS simulations represent a reliable tool if a smaller computational cost is needed. Overall, this work exploits the low computational cost of RANS simulations to produce multiple scenarios useful to evaluate how the dispersion of a pollutant changes by a modification of key variables, such as the temperature.

Fluid dynamic analysis of trees influence in dispersion of pollutant in urban street canyon

degli elementi vegetali nella dinamica e nella dispersione degli inquinanti nello street canyon urbano. In particolare, è stato analizzata la risposta fluidodinamica di cespugli con altezze diverse e di alberi con porosità e altezza del tronco varianti. Il modello analizzato consiste in due edifici di altezza e larghezza pari ad H e lunghezza di 10H, tra i quali corre una strada in cui sono stati modellizati una sorgente rappresentativa del traffico veicolare e, ai lati, due linee di componenti vegetali. Le simulazioni sono state fatte con ANSYS Fluent, un software di "Computational Fluid Dynamics"(CFD) che ha permesso di modellizare la dinamica dei flussi e di simulare le concentrazioni emesse dalla sorgente di CO posta lungo la strada. Per la simulazione è stato impiegato un modello RANS a chiusura k-epsilon, che permette di parametrizzare i momenti secondi nell'equazione di Navier Stokes per permettere una loro più facile risoluzione. I risultati sono stati espressi in termini di profili di velocità e concentrazione molare di CO, unitamente al calcolo della exchange velocity per quantificare gli scambi tra lo street canyon e l'esterno. Per quanto riguarda l'influenza dell'altezza dei tronchi è stata riscontrata una tendenza non lineare tra di essi e la exchange velocity. Analizzando invece la altezza dei cespugli è stato visto che all'aumentare della loro altezza esiste una relazione univoca con l'abbassamento della exchange velocity. Infine, andando a variare la permeabilità delle chiome degli alberi è stata trovatta una variazione non monotonica che correla la exchange velocity con il parametro C_2, che è stata interpretata attraverso i diversi andamenti dei profili sopravento e sottovento. In conclusione, allo stadio attuale della ricerca presentata in questa tesi, non è ancora possibile correlare direttamente la exchange velocity con alcun parametro analizzato.