The effect of the balcony form on the improvement of air quality inside mid-rise buildings in the vicinity of urban highways (case study: Shahid Chamran highway in Tehran)

Mansourian, Elham; Eskandari, Hamid; Heydari, Aliakbar

doi:10.61186/hafthesar.14.51.25

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Volume 14, Issue 51 (7-2025) Haft Hesar J Environ Stud 2025, 14(51): 25-38 | Back to browse issues page

‎ 10.61186/hafthesar.14.51.25

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Mansourian E, Eskandari H, Heydari A. The effect of the balcony form on the improvement of air quality inside mid-rise buildings in the vicinity of urban highways (case study: Shahid Chamran highway in Tehran). Haft Hesar J Environ Stud 2025; 14 (51) :25-38
URL: http://hafthesar.iauh.ac.ir/article-1-2219-en.html

The effect of the balcony form on the improvement of air quality inside mid-rise buildings in the vicinity of urban highways (case study: Shahid Chamran highway in Tehran)

Elham Mansourian¹

, Hamid Eskandari ^*²

, Aliakbar Heydari²

1- Department of Architecture, Yasuj Branch, Islamic Azad University, Yasuj, Iran
2- Department of Architecture, Yasuj University, Iran

Abstract: (236 Views)

Due to the increase of urbanization in modern life, air pollution has been one of the most important problems in recent decades, which has become an important challenge in relation to human health. This issue has become a serious threat to human life with the development of cities and decreasing air quality day by day. For this reason, urban air quality is an important environmental issue in the world that prevents human deaths. Air pollution in cities is caused by factors such as industries and factories, car traffic, the use of fossil fuels for cooling and heating, and similar things. One of the most important factors in the production and release of pollution in the air is the traffic pollutants caused by the traffic of cars that affect the indoor environment. However, the architecture of the buildings can have an effective role on the quantity and quality of the entry of these pollutants into the space inside the buildings. And ... pointed out. Accordingly, among the mentioned elements, in this article, the effect of balcony form on reducing traffic pollutants and increasing indoor air quality is discussed. For this purpose, 10 balcony models in terms of geometry, parapet and wing wall characteristics in a mid-rise building in the city of Tehran in the vicinity of Shahid Chamran highway (as the center of traffic pollutant emission) were selected as case examples and the amount of traffic pollutant entering inside The building was simulated using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) method. The validation of the software in the present study is based on the research of Sin et al. (2023). All settings used in the article are in accordance with validation; With the difference that in this research, the concentration parameter of the pollutant nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) (source of pollution) was used to measure air quality. Based on this, the main goal in this research is to determine the best model of the geometry and structural shape of the balcony to reduce the entry of traffic pollutants into the building and increase the indoor air quality (IAQ) in the mid-rise building. The results of the research indicate that the triangle-shaped balcony has the highest concentration and the curve-shaped balcony has the lowest pollutant concentration in the geometry section of the balcony. Also, the amount of pollutant concentration in the balconies with fences is much lower than the balconies with wing walls. On the other hand, in this research, it can be concluded that the concentration of pollutants entering the building increases with the increase of balcony enclosure in mid-rise buildings that are located in the vicinity of urban highways. Meanwhile, by reducing the enclosure in the balcony, the accumulation of pollution inside the building decreases.

Keywords: : Computational fluid dynamics (CFD), mid-rise building, balcony, NO₂ pollutant concentration, indoor air quality (IAQ), Shahid Chamran highway.

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