A KNOWLEDGE-BASED SYSTEM FOR PREDICTING AND IMPROVING PEDESTRIAN WINDCONDITIONS

A knowledge-based system has been developed for the evaluation of the pedestrian-level wind environment around buildings. This paper present s the system with emphasis on two of its major components dealing with the utilization of meteorological records and the recommendation of r emedies to improve the wind environment, for which statistical analyse s and decision making techniques are applied. In conjunction with esta blished aerodynamic models and discomfort wind criteria, statistics of weather station data is utilized for predicting wind speeds and their frequencies of exceedance. For wind conditions unacceptable for certa in human activities, remedial measures are selected through a multi-ob jective decision making process. A number of data bases have been buil t for the estimation of weights and utility values related to aerodyna mic efficiency as well as economic, architectural and functional aspec ts. The paper demonstrates the feasibility of a knowledge-based approa ch for predicting and improving the wind environment conditions at the preliminary stage of building design and city planning.