• Journal of the Korean Association of Geographic Information Studies
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.69-81
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• 2009

Using a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model, the effects of building complexes constructed under an urban renewal plan on air flows in an urban area were investigated. For this, the geographic information system (GIS) data were used as the input data of the CFD model and four experiments were numerically simulated for different inflow directions (westerly, southerly, easterly, and northerly cases). Before constructing building complexes under the urban renewal plan, wind speed at the pedestrian level was very low around buildings because of decrease in wind speed by the drag effect of the densely distributed low-rise buildings. As the high-rise buildings were constructed and building density decreased by the urban renewal plan, wind speed at the pedestrian level increased compared to that before the urban renewal plan because the drag effect by the buildings decreases and the channeling effect satisfying the mass continuity partially appeared at the spaces among the high-rise buildings. At the upper levels, wind speed partially increased inside the high-rise buildings due to the channeling effect but it remarkably decreased across a vast extent of the downwind regions due to the generation of the recirculation zone and the drag effect of the high-rise buildings.