Impacts of green walls on the characteristics of thermo-flow and photochemical reaction kinetics within street canyons

Green Walls (GWs) have broad application prospects in the urban area because they can be planted without occupying additional spaces and can improve the microclimate environment. To investigate the effect of GWs on thermo-flow and photochemical reaction kinetics in the street canyon (AR = 1), the CFD model coupled with the NOx-O₃ photochemistry model were employed and validated by the wind-tunnel dataset. The GWs with different LADs (leaf area density) and four wall heating scenarios were considered. Results show that compared with leeward wall and ground heating, all walls and windward wall heating will change the flow structure most significantly. Still, the cooling effect and wind resistance of the GWs will weaken the influence of wall thermal effects on the flow fields. Moreover, GWs can effectively reduce the average temperature (about 1.0 K) within the street canyon and improve thermal comfort locally. The effect of GWs on CO dispersion highly depends on the wall heating scenarios. Windward wall heating can increase the CO concentrations seriously by up to 43.9% at the pedestrian level, more than that of the other three scenarios. It is also found that for leeward wall and ground heating, lower reactive pollutant concentrations (NOx) become the limiting factor of Ozone depletion rate (dO₃), while for windward wall and all walls heating with higher reactive pollutant concentrations, the concentration of O₃ may be the limiting factor. This work can provide constructive guidance for urban planning and optimization of GWs layouts to alleviate the urban heat island effect and improve local air quality.