[esp-r] Re: outdoor spaces

[Jon Hand]

A recent question...

::Can esp-r be used to model outdoor spaces, such as courtyards or
::streets? I'd like to compare a few geometries against thermal parameters
::like resultant temperature, surface temperatures etc.  Is this possible?

In the past models have approximated indoor courtyards by treating
them as zones mostly surrounded by building surfaces (from other zones
in the model) with a very transparent roof and with a control law set to control
to the ambient temperature. 

There is no easy way to impose outside wind speeds to such a
zone, It was scary enough to do a courtyard with a limited
exposure to the sky. For a situation where the sky exposure
is large then there would be considerable uncertainty. For example,
how could boundary surfaces approximate the actual sky temperature?

-Jon Hand