Research area
Understanding how urban morphology, materials, mitigation strategies, and atmospheric forcing interact to shape local climate and building energy use.
Three-dimensional urban energy-balance simulations compare artificial turf with asphalt, concrete, and natural grass. Artificial turf’s low albedo and limited evaporative cooling can elevate surface temperature, radiative exposure, and nearby air temperature; the analysis also identifies the water and energy tradeoffs associated with cooling strategies.
The TUF-IOBES framework dynamically couples urban surface temperatures and heat fluxes, canopy-layer air, building envelopes, indoor zones, HVAC operation, and anthropogenic waste heat. This integrated treatment allows weather, material properties, and canyon geometry to influence both microclimate and building energy use without prescribing one side of the interaction.
Increasing pavement albedo can lower pavement and urban air temperatures, but the reflected solar radiation may increase loads on adjacent façades and enter through windows. Coupled urban and building simulations quantify this tradeoff and show why climate, canyon geometry, glazing, and the placement of reflective surfaces must be considered together.
Read the Urban Climate paper: “Effect of Reflective Pavements on Building Energy Use”
A three-dimensional urban energy-balance model is coupled with large-eddy simulation to represent realistic, time-varying surface temperatures over a building array. Morning, afternoon, and evening heating patterns alter pressure gradients, buoyancy, turbulence, and ventilation, producing flow structures that differ from simulations with uniform thermal boundary conditions.
Building-energy simulations with varying plant coverage isolate the roles of shading and evapotranspiration in the green-roof energy balance. Greater coverage lowers substrate temperature and cooling demand, while the reduced solar gain can slightly increase heating demand during cooler periods; the annual result therefore depends on climate and coverage fraction.