Tomographic Environmental Sections for Environmental Mitigation Devices in Historical Centers†
SAD—School of Architecture and Design “Eduardo Vittoria”, University of Camerino, Viale della Rimembranza, 63100 Ascoli Piceno, Italy
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Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
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This is an expanded version of a conference paper: Prenna, E.; Ottone, M.F.; Cocci Grifoni, R. The tomographic environmental sections for environmental mitigation devices in historical centers. In Proceedings of IEEE 16th International Conference on Environment and Electrical Engineering (EEEIC), Florence, Italy, 6–8 June 2016.
Academic Editor: Chi-Ming Lai
Energies 2017, 10(3), 351; https://doi.org/10.3390/en10030351
Received: 23 December 2016 / Revised: 20 February 2017 / Accepted: 27 February 2017 / Published: 11 March 2017
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Selected Papers from 16 IEEE International Conference on Environment and Electrical Engineering (EEEIC 2016))
Urban heat waves and the overall growing trend in the annual global temperature underline the importance of urban/architectural resilience and the need to reduce energy consumption. By designing urban voids, it is possible to create thermodynamic buffers, i.e., bubbles of controlled atmosphere that act as mediators between the natural and built environments, between the human body and the surrounding air, between meteorology and physiology (meteorological architecture). Multiple small actions in the urban fabric’s open spaces, such as replacing dark pavements or inserting vegetation and green spaces, are intended to improve outdoor comfort conditions and therefore the resilience of the city itself. This not only benefits the place’s quality, which is intrinsic to the new project, but also the insulating capacity of buildings, which are relieved of an external heat load. The design emphasis therefore changes from solid structures to the climate and weather conditions, which are invisible but perceivable. To design and control these constructed atmopheres, tomographic sections processed with computational fluid dynamics software (tomographic environmental section, TENS) becomes necessary. It allows the effects of an extreme event on an outdoor environment to be evaluated in order to establish the appropriate (adaptive) climate mitigation devices, especially in historical centers where energy retrofits are often discouraged. By fixing boundary conditions after a local intervention, the virtual environment can be simulated and then "sliced" to analyze initial values and verify the design improvements.
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Keywords:
tomographic environmental section (TENS) method; global warming; heat waves; urban acupuncture; computational fluid dynamics (CFD); outdoor comfort
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MDPI and ACS Style
Grifoni, R.C.; Ottone, M.F.; Prenna, E. Tomographic Environmental Sections for Environmental Mitigation Devices in Historical Centers. Energies 2017, 10, 351. https://doi.org/10.3390/en10030351
AMA Style
Grifoni RC, Ottone MF, Prenna E. Tomographic Environmental Sections for Environmental Mitigation Devices in Historical Centers. Energies. 2017; 10(3):351. https://doi.org/10.3390/en10030351
Chicago/Turabian StyleGrifoni, Roberta C.; Ottone, Maria F.; Prenna, Enrico. 2017. "Tomographic Environmental Sections for Environmental Mitigation Devices in Historical Centers" Energies 10, no. 3: 351. https://doi.org/10.3390/en10030351
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