Operational CFD Model for impact analysis on spatial interventions to improve urban ventilation.

Within the contemporary debate on liveability in cities, the topic of natural ventilation as mitigating measure is gaining more and more interest. Especially in the field of air quality, natural ventilation has gained a lot of interest as an additional measure to local emission reduction strategies (e.g. transition to electric vehicle fleet and introduction of (ultra) low emission zones) to comply with the stricter air quality guidelines (European standards and World Health Organization (WHO) Air Quality Guidelines (AQGs)). The public awareness and the actions of citizens' initiatives are putting additional pressure on spatial planners and urban policy makers to tackle the problems of air quality and heat. It is generally known that street canyons (streets flanked by facades on both sides) are, due to their morphology, the bottleneck zones for natural ventilation and thus are greatly challenged by increased pollution levels and problems related to urban heat. However, spatial planners and urban policy makers have few useful and reliable tools and knowledge to analyze these street canyons and to develop solutions. This demand from the market was discussed during meetings with Cabinet Advisers (City of Antwerp), spatial policy makers (city of Antwerp, Climate and Environment department), the Flemish Environment Agency (VMM) and design firms (Maat-Ontwerpers, OMGEVING).This project proposal fully addresses this gap in the market by providing validated tools (CFD simulations) for analysis of existing situations and impact-analysis of spatial interventions to support the implementation of spatial measures for the optimization of ventilation in urban environments and to offer this as a product-service to companies and governments. Hereby the recently developed knowledge on this matter (unique within the Flemish field of knowledge) within the multidisciplinary collaboration between the research group Sustainable Energy, Air and Water technology (DuEL) (Faculty of Sciences, UA) and the research group for Urban Development (Faculty of Design Sciences , UA) is used. In addition to this knowledge, a tool was developed (CFD model) for carrying out detailed analyzes of urban areas (focus on street canyons) and calculating spatial interventions that focus on the optimization of local natural ventilation and/or pollutant dispersion. The CFD model differs from current standard models since it has been thoroughly validated (by means of an extensive measurement campaign) and has the possibility to calculate the impact of adjustments to building configurations (in contrast to the usual models for Flemish governments such as AtmoStreet, IMPACT and CAR that only can calculate the impact of adjustments to emissions/traffic flows). For this project proposal, an IOF-POC Develop is requested to further develop the CFD model in co-creation with the City of Antwerp and/or VMM and thus make it ready for market-introduction on a technical level. Furthermore, commercial steps are being taken (further market and competition screening, detailed valuation of the service and analysis of real costs, such as personnel, but also technical matters such as measurement equipment and computing power) to substantiate the development of the Service Platform (substantiation of follow-up application IOF Service Platform in 2023) with potential to grow into a spin-off company. Finally, a number of alternative valorisation routes were identified, such as registration for European framework programs (Interreg, Life, Horizone Europe), cooperation agreements with public companies for large-scale projects (e.g. Lantis) and cooperation agreements regarding the setting up of the screening tool by the Flemish Environment Agency (VMM).

Keywords:URBAN ENVIRONMENT, URBAN DESIGN, AIR POLLUTION

Disciplines:Urban physics, Environmental and sustainable planning