CFD simulations and field measurements of urban microclimate in a real compact heterogeneous urban area

Considering the radical increase of urban population and the trend toward urbanization, the analysis of microclimatic conditions in the urban environment is getting more significant. In this perspective, this study analyzes microclimatic conditions in a real urban area. The real compact inhomogeneous urban area under study is located in Nicosia old town, in Cyprus. High-resolution Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations are performed based on the 3D unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes equations to assess the air temperature and wind speed distributions. The CFD results are compared with on-site measurements for the same area. The results show that CFD can predict air temperatures in compact real urban areas, with an average deviation of 6.8%. Based on the results, conclusions are going to be made regarding thermal comfort in the case study area.