Model of natural ventilation by using a coupled thermal-airflow simulation program

This article presents a model of natural ventilation of buildings at the stage of design and a consequence of the behaviour of the occupants. An evaluation is made by coupling multizone air modelling and thermal building simulation using a deterministic set of input factors comprising among others climate, local environment, building characteristics, building systems, behaviour of occupants and heat loads. Selected deterministic input factors are varied to generate additional information applied in an optimization loop.With that, it is found that the optimal solution depends to a great extent on the possibility of optimization of the behaviour of occupants, and to a lesser extent on the design of the building.

► We simulate one building with the coupled airflow-thermal program Energy Plus.
► The building was located in a place with warm conditions.
► We changed characteristics from the building design and the behaviour of the occupants.
► The aim was to find the optimal conditions of thermal comfort using natural ventilation.
► The most important factor is the behaviour of the users.