Natural ventilation with traditional Korean opening in contemporary house

In this study, a natural ventilation opening was designed based on the traditional Korean opening to improve indoor environment on the contemporary house. The prototype of the opening was composed of three hanji papers and two air layers to improve airflow rate, and also to recovery heat lose. The performance of the heat recovery and airflows of the prototype was measured in laboratory, and the CFD simulation was used to verify its performance in the contemporary house. The airflow rate of the prototype is exponentially increased according to the pressure differences, and it ranges from 12.6 to 39.6 m3/m2 h in 3–10 Pa, pressure difference. The total amount of heat recovery ranges from 47.8 to 67.7 W/m2 in the prototype, and the heat recovery rate is about 25% at 10 Pa. In the CFD simulation, the prototypes were installed at 25% of the total window areas of the model house. The outside air was totally supplied through the prototypes at 67.2 m3/h in the model house, and it is equivalent to 0.2 h−1 ventilation rate. The results show that the prototype is capable of providing natural ventilation even at low wind pressure, and also that it prevent cold draft in heating period. Further analysis of the ventilation performance including the thermal force is needed to apply the prototype to the contemporary house.