Analysis of local climate effects for Martineåsen development project in Larvik

Abstract

The goal of this thesis is to perform analysis of local climate effects for Martineåsen development project in Larvik. The Norwegian regulatory acts place a strict requirements on outdoor areas comfort criteria and thus for the purpose of said development project, strict adherence to these acts is necessary. The outdoor comfort in cold climate is mostly governed by wind, and thus study of local climate effects in Martineåsen is needed, to evaluate the impact of construction work and local topography influence on the local wind effects. The first part of the thesis investigates general climatic conditions in Norway and Larvik, in particular, fluid mechanics, wind generation, the impact of wind effects on buildings and their components and comfort criteria on order to build a solid theoretical understanding of these effects and how they will translate to local conditions at Martineåsen development area. Second part of the thesis is concerned with CFD simulations of Martineåsen project area. The results show that removal of the forest at the hills, located in the general direction of prevailing wind direction will increase local wind effects at the site. Therefore, some alterations to building locations have been done to counter this increase. Results have shown that new configuration performs better than the original one and it is recommended to analyze the effects of different building configurations further.