| Abstract: | The population in urban areas is increasing rapidly around the world in most of the cities.In India,this growth has forced the local governments to review the planning norms regularly with the main focus of making an affordable urban living.This resulted in increasing the built density without evaluating the effect of such developments on human thermal com-fort.Outdoor microclimate is one of the significant factors that determine the quality of out-door spaces.This study investigates the potential impact of the built geometry guided by the newly published development control rules of Chennai,India on the various parameters that influence microclimate.The existing and future scenario has been modelled for three locations in a typical mixed-use neighborhood of Chennai.Further,air temperature and relative humid-ity were measured in three locations on a typical summer month of May 2018.The recorded data was used for validating the simulated model and calibrating the model settings.Most of the studies on outdoor thermal comfort compare a base case scenario and project future scenarios.This paper is a more realistic comparison of outdoor thermal comfort between the actual resultant built environment guided by the new Tamil Nadu Combined Development and Building Rules,2019 for selected locations and the existing built geometry which is the outcome of revised development control rules of 2013.The study found a significant reduction of 18℃in mean radiant temperature(Tmrt)and a reduction of 12℃in Physiological Equiv-alent Temperature(PET)between the 2013 and the predicted built geometry as per 2019 build-ing rules.Further the duration of extreme heat stress in the Physiological Equivalent Temperature(PET)scale show a reduction of 3 h during the day time.The study will assist ur-ban planners and designers to include outdoor thermal comfort also as an important factor while developing building rules. |
