Design and experimental validation of an urban microclimate tool integrating indoor-outdoor detailed longwave radiative fluxes at district scale

Numerical simulation is a powerful tool for assessing the causes of an Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect or quantifying the impact of mitigation solutions on outdoor and indoor thermal comfort. For that purpose, several models have been developed at the district scale. At this scale, the outside surface energy budget is detailed, however building models are very simplified and considered as a boundary condition of the district scale model. This shortcoming inhibits the opportunity to investigate the effect of urban microclimate on the inside building conditions. The aim of this work is to improve the representation of the physical phenomena involved in the building models of a district model. For that purpose, the model integrates inside and outside fully detailed long-wave radiative flux. The numerical model is based on finite differences to solve conduction through all the surfaces and the radiosity method to solve long-wave radiative heat fluxes inside and outside. Calculated temperatures and heat fluxes are evaluated with respect to in situ measurements from an experimental demonstrator over 14 sensors and a 24-day period. Results are also compared to state-of-the-art models simulation tool show improvement of the RMSE of 0.9 • C to 2.1 • C on the surface temperature modeled.