Drones for enabling computational environmental flow dynamics studies

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Embracing sustainability and maintaining resiliency of Canada’s built environment against natural hazards is necessary to sustain the wellbeing and prosperity of our communities. Sustainable building design in Canada, the second largest country in the world with diverse geography characterized by climate extremes, mostly revolves around energy efficiency and resiliency (i.e. ability to withstand the climate loads and re-bounce quickly after climate induced interruptions). Buildings in Canada consume 30% of the total energy and 50% of the electricity on an annual basis. Through optimal resilient and sustainable design, however, there is an opportunity to reduce a building’s energy consumption by as high as 80%. Sustainable design entails consideration and integration of climate responsiveness and resiliency. Therefore, a clear understanding and realistic modelling of the complex interaction between the climate and the built-environment is a prerequisite. This necessitates unprecedented urban climate modeling (wind speed, pressure, humidity, temperature, etc.) at high temporal and spatial resolution. Transient climate parameters are required at a particular building location, ventilation inlet, window/door opening or at street level over a long duration. One of the major challenges in realistic and pragmatic numerical urban micro-climate modeling for wind engineering, environmental and building energy simulation application is the complexity of the geometry (topology) and the variability of surface types involved in urban exposures. Each building form and surface classification is individually and manually entered into a CAD model through on-site-observations and publicly available information, which are often very time consuming and less precise. Accurate site and building specific information are required to assess climate loads such as wind, for example, during structural or natural ventilation design or for building energy simulation. The main objective of this project is to develop an automated site specific 3D urban modeling useful for urban climate studies. For this purpose, various remote sensors installed on Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) will be used to collect topology and surface data. Accurate urban climate modeling and their automation through UAV mounted remote sensing is expected to transform the state-of-the-art in sustainable and resilient building design. The requested UAV system will also aid in structural health monitoring, damage detection of buildings and bridges without any destructive testing or interruption of functionality. It can be further used for environmental disaster monitoring applications such as post-damage assessment during extreme events such tornado touchdowns, hurricane landfalls or urban flooding. Furthermore, the system can be adapted for optimizing solar photovoltaic deployment in urban areas.