A passive cooling strategy in hot desert climate : Wadi Karkar villages-Aswan as a case study

Abstract EN

Pedestrian thermal comfort is related to the urban patterns generated from a specific urban planning methodology.

It is noteworthy that urban planning process in Egypt does not consider passive urban design strategies to help reduce heat stresses, although there are historical examples of environmental architecture such as the Nubian architecture which considered one of the most famous examples of the desert architecture, where interacted with the surrounding environment.

Therefore, this study investigates the best possible ratio for urban compactness as a passive cooling strategy.

Moreover, it definesthe relationship between the compactness degree, air temperature, and air velocity, also the researchproposes the appropriate conditions for improving the pedestrian wind comfort.

The numerical simulations were conducted, using the Autodesk CFD 2016 software.

This research suggests some modifications for a variety of ratios in different orientations.

The results show that the ratio 1 : 1.5 in the North-South orientation records the best value of the temperature and the air velocity.

The results of the correlation indicate that the higher the air velocity the lower the air temperature and vice versa.

In addition, the air velocity in most of the cases is suitable for long time outdoor sitting in different orientations.