City, Wind, Energy: The limits of applying the natural ventilation for energy conservation facing the urban densification in tropical humid climate

• Grant number: 11/08980-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Effective date (Start): July 01, 2011
• Effective date (End): September 30, 2013
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Architecture and Town Planning - Architecture and Urbanism Technology
• Principal Investigator: Anesia Barros Frota
• Grantee: Renan Cid Varela Leite
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo (FAU). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Urbanization can deeply compromise the city's atmosphere through the modification of the environmental parameters. Among the city's impacts over natural climate, great emphasis is placed on heat generation and changes on natural ventilation conditions that directly lead to thermal discomfort, compromising buildings energetic performance. Currently energy consumption is in the centre of the discussion about environmental preservation and sustainable development. Within the buildings it is emphasized the use of natural resources for building's conditioning. Specifically in cities with hot, humid weather, the case of Fortaleza, Ceará, Brasil (latitude 3° 43' S), natural ventilation is the main passive strategy to obtain thermal comfort. On the other hand, it is becoming a major problem to maintain the potential to naturally ventilate the building's façades in urban centers because of the constructive densification and building's height, compromising the wind access to habitations. Once the city's spatial organization directly influences building's natural ventilation through the modification of pressure coefficients (Cp) over its surfaces, this research aims to determine the limits to urban densification in ways that it results in better conditions to the air movement in high-rise apartments. The adoption of solutions in order to dissipate the heat and improve indoor thermal conditions using natural ventilation reduce the need for artificial conditioning.

Academic Publications

(References retrieved automatically from State of São Paulo Research Institutions)

LEITE, Renan Cid Varela. City, wind, energy: limits for applying natural ventilation for thermal comfort in its relation to urban densification in the hot-humid tropical climate. 2015. Doctoral Thesis - Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo (FAU/SBI) São Paulo.