Numerical Analysis of Improvement Effects on Summer Outdoor Thermal Environment Around Enclosed Teaching Buildings in the Hot-Humid and Less-Windy Climate

Outdoor thermal environment around teaching buildings affects students’ comfort and building energy consumption, especially in summer. This paper focuses on a teaching building with enclosed arrangement in a hot-humid and less-windy climate and analyzes the thermal environment in outdoor spaces around the building. The measurement results showed that average air temperatures and MRT (mean radiant temperature) in six outdoor spaces are higher than the ambient temperature by around \(1\,^\circ {\text{C}}\) and \(6\,^\circ {\text{C}}\) , respectively. Thermal improvement strategies for reducing surface temperatures in the analyzed spaces were proposed based on measurement results. A thermal simulation tool (ThermoRender) was used to quantify the improvement effects of the proposed strategies on the thermal environment. Simulation results revealed that the average values of MRT were reduced by \(1.0\,^\circ {\text{C}}\) to \(5.1\,^\circ {\text{C}}\) . It is noted that the reduction of received solar heat through sunshade devices and tree shading is an effective way to improve outdoor thermal environment, which can be considered as design guidance for creating a comfortable outdoor thermal environment around enclosed teaching buildings in the hot-humid and less-windy climate.