Assessment of human thermal comfort in street canyons. An example of typical structures (Lodz, Poland)

Abstract

An urban form has undeniable influence on microclimatic and human thermal conditions in strongly urbanized areas. In this context, this paper aims at evaluating the ability of the layout of street canyons to provide proper outdoor conditions in the human realm. The research is focused on the assessment of human thermal comfort depending on the configuration of the selected streets, which are located in the main city’s area of the revitalization process. The ENVI-met application, which is widely used in urban climatology, is applied to estimate the impact of the street’s layout on human comfort. Thermal indices such as: SET, PMV, PET and UTCI are implemented to describe conditions prevailing in the street canyons. Furthermore, the results arecompared with the literature findings.

Keywords

• urban planning
• city structure
• thermal comfort