High Fidelity CFD Modeling of Natural Ventilation in a Solar House

Thumbnail Image
Date
2015-01-01
Authors
Major Professor
Advisor
Committee Member
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract

Natural ventilation is an important factor in the design of sustainable buildings; it has the potential to improve air quality, while providing thermal comfort at reduced energy costs. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations provide comprehensive information on the internal flow pattern and can be used as a design tool. The present work offers insight of natural ventilation in a fully functional building, namely, the solar facility Interlock House in Iowa. Ventilation in the house is studied during summer months with some of its furniture included. The results show quantitative agreement between numerical simulations and experiments of vertical temperature profiles for each room. The temperature profile of the room with the inlet opening shows a more pronounced temperature variation. Flow patterns show higher velocities near the walls and marked flow circulation towards the opposite side of the building. The purpose of this work is to validate the numerical model that predicts airflow distribution for different configurations.

Series Number
Journal Issue
Is Version Of
Versions
Series
Type
article
Comments

This is a proceedings published as Deza, Mirka, Baskar Ganapathysubramanian, Shan He, and Ulrike Passe. "High Fidelity CFD Modeling of Natural Ventilation in a Solar House." ASME 2015 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition. DOI:10.1115/IMECE2015-53491. Posted with permission.

Rights Statement
Copyright
Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 UTC 2015
Funding
DOI
Supplemental Resources