Natural ventilation
This research, titled Energy Efficient Building Ventilation, was concerned with developing procedures and systems for the incoporation of natural ventilation concepts into existing and new urban buildings. The aim of this research was to reduce reliance on air conditioning and mechanical air handling systems.
It is a collaboration between OPUS Central Laboratories of Lower Hutt and the Centre for Building Performance Research, with funding provided by the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology.
The research was conducted in three phases:
Phase one
Computer and wind tunnel models of a simple full scale building were produced to see how successfully the computer simulations predicted the interaction of natural air flow.
The principal product of Phase One is a set of data which can be used to calibrate simulations with CFD software. To check the reliability of your CFD predictions the research team recommends comparing your CFD output with the measured full-scale data and wind tunnel data generated for this project.
Reports and papers
- CLR-98-529152.00
- Wind Tunnel Pressure Data
- CFD Data Fields
- pdf 71 KB Texas Tech Building Pressure Data
- pdf 357 KB 'How Close is Close Enough' was presented to the ANZAScA Annual Conference in June 1998. It discusses reliability and calibration data for computational fluid dynamic modelling (CFD). The authors are: Prasasto Satwiko, Nick Locke and Michael Donn.
Phase two
Three inter-related studies are concerned with acquiring data for use in generating boundary conditions required by computer simulations in evaluating ventilation effectiveness and comfort implications.
- Determine noise ingress and air pressure differences across representative building openings.
- Obtain site specific micro-climate data (wind, temperature, precipitation and solar radiation) over a 12 month period and compare them with readily available regional summary climate observations to determine the likely effect of local climate on building performance.
- Test the accuracy of a manual traffic noise prediction method (the CETUR model) by comparing predicted and measured traffic noise levels in the vicinity of the test case building for different traffic volumes and wind conditions. Evaluate the suitability for calculating vehicle noise propogation at less than 'ideal' urban sites as required in natural ventilation.
Reports and papers
EECA EnergyWise News article "Natural Ventilation for Buildings", June-August 1999.
Phase three
Applying the investigated modelling techniques to perform a ventilation study of the existing Wellington School of Architecture building with natural ventilation concepts incorporated in order to identify limitations of the adopted performance assesment methodology, and determine the potential cost-benefit of natural ventilation by contrasting predicted energy savings with indoor environment quality and system usability.