Role of atrium geometry in building energy consumption: The case of a fully air-conditioned enclosed atrium in cold climates, China

Fully air-conditioned atria have become increasingly popular in architecture design due to their appealing aesthetic and iconic features to general public. In certain regions of China, climate diversities in winter (freezing-cold) and summer (warm-humid) are huge. Energy consumptions due to air-conditioning of atria in these regions are enormously high. Thus, their corresponding energy managements without compromising the indoor thermal comfort are extremely challenging. The geometric configuration of the atrium has preliminary and significant impacts on the indoor environment and further influences the energy consumption. The impacts of atria's geometric configuration on indoor thermal condition and energy consumption under highly diversified climate conditions in China are studied in this paper. A fully air-conditioned enclosed atrium with square plane and cross-section is considered in this research. Atria with different section aspect ratio (SAR) and skylight sizes are investigated with a combination of (1) field measurements and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations for temperature distribution and (2) energy simulations for the corresponding energy performance. Case studies for the temperature distribution profile for atria with different SAR and the quantitative correlations between atria's SAR and its energy performance are presented. Optimum skylight size based on the objective function to minimize the annual energy consumption will also be reported.