A numerical investigation on the impacts of voids combinations on natural ventilation of high-rise residential building

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hamza Laloui ◽  
Noor Hanita Abdul Majid ◽  
Aliyah Nur Zafirah Sanusi

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the impacts of introducing voids combinations on natural ventilation performance in high-rise residential building living unit. Design/methodology/approach This study was carried out through field measurement and computational fluid dynamics methods. The parameters of the study are void types and sizes, and a wind angle was used to formulate case studies. Findings The results indicate that the provision of a single-sided horizontal void larger by 50% increase the indoor air velocity performance up to 322.37% to 0.471 m/s in the living unit and achieves the required velocity for thermal comfort. Originality/value Passive design features are the most desirable techniques to enhance natural ventilation performance in the high-rise residential apartments for thermal comfort and indoor air quality purposes.

Author(s):  
M. F. Mohamed ◽  
M. Behnia ◽  
S. King ◽  
D. Prasad

Cross ventilation is a more effective ventilation strategy in comparison to single-sided ventilation. In the NSW Residential Flat Design Code1 (RFDC) the majority of apartments are required to adopt cross ventilation. However, in the case of studio and one-bedroom apartments, it is acknowledged that single-sided ventilation may prevail. Deep plan studio and one-bedroom apartments may achieve lower amenity of summer thermal comfort and indoor air quality where mechanical ventilation is not provided by air conditioning. Since compliance with the code may allow up to 40% of apartments in a development in Sydney to be single sided, it is important to understand the natural ventilation performance of such apartments. The objective of this paper is to investigate the natural ventilation potential in single-sided ventilated apartments to improve indoor air quality and thermal comfort. This investigation includes simulating various facade treatments involving multiple opening and balcony configurations. Balcony configurations are included in this study because, in Sydney, a balcony is a compulsory architectural element in any apartment building. The study uses computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software to simulate and predict the ventilation performance of each apartment configuration. This study suggests that properly configured balconies and openings can significantly improve indoor ventilation performance for enhanced indoor air quality and thermal comfort, by optimizing the available prevailing wind. However, it is important to note that inappropriately designed fac¸ade treatments also could diminish natural ventilation performance.


2017 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 90-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Gerges ◽  
Mohammad Mayouf ◽  
Peter Rumley ◽  
David Moore

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate human behaviour under a situation of fire in high-rise residential buildings and identify the factors that motivate people to evacuate. Design/methodology/approach A literature review was conducted to identify different factors of human behaviour during a situation of fire and identify challenges during the evacuation. Through a mixed research method approach, the paper identifies human background, experience and knowledge with fire safety. The paper discusses the challenges occupants face during evacuation based on previous evacuation experience and what occupants were doing during the fire alarm. Findings The paper has identified the challenges and the factors that affect occupants’ decision during fire emergency in high-rise residential buildings. It is clear from the findings that occupants have limited knowledge and skills on how to deal with fire emergencies. Occupants tend to depend on other evacuation routes. Occupants tend to ignore the fire alarm and usually they investigate if it is true or false. Originality/value The paper provides the knowledge and findings of occupants during fire emergency to fire engineers, facility managers, owners, and other professionals to assist during the design phase, and modify designs based on this findings of this research.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hamza Laloui ◽  
Noor Hanita Abdul Majid ◽  
Aliyah Nur Zafirah Sanusi

PurposeThe paper aims to investigate and evaluate the impacts of the voids combination as a passive design feature on wind-driven ventilation performance in high-rise residential building units. It proposes a series of building models and thereon indoor ventilation performance and outlining why and how these building models designed with architectural design features are important. This study aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of how natural ventilation as a passive cooling strategy in living units of high-rise residential buildings can be applied through improving the provision of the architectural design feature of voids configurations.Design/methodology/approachThe study was carried out through field measurements experiment and the computational fluid dynamics methods. A series of numerical simulations were carried out to calculate the indoor ventilation rate inside the case studies of the generated building models based on various variables such as horizontal voids type, size and wind directions.FindingsThe results indicate that the provision of a single-sided horizontal voids in building models can improve the indoor ventilation rate in units with cross ventilation mode up to 4 times, depending on wind direction and living unit location. The indoor ventilation performance in units located in models with single-sided horizontal voids is 17.54% higher than the units located in models without voids configuration. Furthermore, higher indoor ventilation performance was achieved in the case scenarios located at higher levels compared to the middle and lower levels in both horizontal voids types.Originality/valueThis study explores the application of voids combinations for natural ventilation performance, investigates the numerical simulation results and validates field measurements experiment data using CFD simulation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 78-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maher Dhahri ◽  
Hana Aouinet

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate air flow, temperature distribution and thermal confort in natural ventilation induced by solar chimney for different operating. Design/methodology/approach Numerical simulation is performed using a commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) package ANSYS CFX software to understand the effects of air temperature, air velocity and solar heat flux on the performance of the solar chimney and thermal comfort. The comfort level was evaluated using the air diffusion performance index (ADPI) according to ASHRAE (55-210). The flow was investigated at inclination angles 45° solar heat flux 550-750 W/m2 and in a solar chimney of 1.4 m length, 0.6 m width and 0.20 m air gab. Findings The numerical results from the present simulation were first validated with experimental data, which was used for the thermal comfort indexes calculation. The obtained results of the analysis showed that the used numerical technique could accurately predict air flow and temperature distribution in natural ventilated building using solar chimney; the air temperature, air velocity and solar heat flux have a significant impact on thermal comfort; the temperature of 19°C with velocity of 0.15 m.s−1 gives the best effective draft temperature (EDT) satisfy ASHRAE (55-210) criteria that V = 0.35 m.s−1 and EDT range between −1.7 and 1.1. Originality/value In the present paper, air flow, temperature distribution and thermal comfort inside a room equipped with inclined solar chimney were numerically investigated and analyzed. The commercial CFD package (CFX 15) is used. Calculations are carried out in an empty room without any human or mechanical activity and the numerical results are compared with measurement points.


2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohd Farid Mohamed ◽  
Steve King ◽  
Masud Behnia ◽  
Deo Prasad

Natural ventilation performance can be influenced by various factors, including facade treatments such as balconies. Balconies have been commonly incorporated into residential buildings for various purposes, yet the provision of a balcony as a passive design strategy to improve natural ventilation is not one of its common purposes. The objective of this study is to investigate the effect of balcony design on the natural ventilation performance of cross-ventilated high-rise apartments. This study uses Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) models to predict ventilation performance. CFD models are selected because of their accuracy, flexibility and ability to provide comprehensive data for the investigation. This study suggests that balconies in high-rise apartments could improve the ventilation performance of high-rise apartments, but that balconies can also have a negative impact on ventilation performance if not appropriately designed. Finally, this study suggests that balconies could improve the level of thermal comfort and indoor air quality of apartments by providing greater indoor air speed and better ventilation performance, respectively.


2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 112-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Omar S. Asfour

This study aims to examine the effect of building plan form on internal thermal comfort conditions in naturally ventilated open-plan buildings located in hot climates. The study examined the square and the rectangular plan forms in relation to several values of wind direction, building plan depth, and climatic conditions. The study utilised CFD for ventilation prediction, DesignBuilder for thermal modelling, and the Tropical Summer Index (TSI) for thermal comfort assessment. These three tools were integrated in a quantitative approach to fulfil the study aim. The study concluded that the use of area-weighted average velocity magnitude is more accurate in the assessment of natural ventilation performance, as it accounts for both internal velocity magnitude and distribution. The study confirmed the common observation that the use of shallow building plans is more effective to increase internal air velocity and improve internal thermal comfort. At some point of increased plan depth, the internal air velocity magnitude dramatically decreases. In the three examined wind directions, this occurred when the plan depth exceeded 3H in the square cases and 2.5H in the rectangular ones, where H is the building height. This value is much less than the commonly recommended maximum value of 5H. The study also concluded that reducing building depth in the square cases has generally more potential to improve thermal comfort conditions when compared with the rectangular cases. The gross increase in Percentage of People Comfortable, PPC, in all the examined cases was 23% in the square cases, compared to 11% in the rectangular cases.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (20) ◽  
pp. 5730 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pau Chung Leng ◽  
Mohd Hamdan Ahmad ◽  
Dilshan Remaz Ossen ◽  
Gabriel H.T. Ling ◽  
Samsiah Abdullah ◽  
...  

In Malaysia, terraced housing hardly provides thermal comfort to the occupants. More often than not, mechanical cooling, which is an energy consuming component, contributes to outdoor heat dissipation that leads to an urban heat island effect. Alternatively, encouraging natural ventilation can eliminate heat from the indoor environment. Unfortunately, with static outdoor air conditioning and lack of windows in terraced houses, the conventional ventilation technique does not work well, even for houses with an air well. Hence, this research investigated ways to maximize natural ventilation in terraced housing by exploring the air well configurations. By adopting an existing single storey terraced house with an air well, located in Kuching, Sarawak, the existing indoor environmental conditions and thermal performance were investigated and monitored using scientific equipment, namely HOBO U12 air temperature and air humidity, the HOBO U12 anemometer and the Delta Ohm HD32.3 Wet Bulb Globe Temperature meter. For this parametric study, the DesignBuilder software was utilized. The field study illustrated that there is a need to improve indoor thermal comfort. Thus, the study further proposes improvement strategies to the existing case study house. The proposition was to turn the existing air well into a solar chimney taking into account advantages of constant and available solar radiation for stack ventilation. The results suggest that the enhanced air well was able to improve the indoor room air velocity and reduce air temperature. The enhanced air well with 3.5 m height, 1.0 m air gap width, 2.0 m length was able to induce higher air velocity. During the highest air temperature hour, the indoor air velocity in existing test room increased from 0.02 m/s in the existing condition to 0.29 m/s in the hottest day with 2.06 °C air temperature reduction. The findings revealed that the proposed air well could enhance the thermal and ventilation performance under the Malaysia tropical climate.


2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (5) ◽  
pp. 631-643
Author(s):  
Sedat Özer ◽  
Yaşar Erayman Yüksel ◽  
Yasemin Korkmaz

PurposeDesign of bedding textiles that contact the human body affects the sleep quality. Bedding textiles contribute to comfort sense during the sleep duration, in addition to ambient and bed microclimate. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effects of different layer properties on the compression recovery and thermal characteristics of multilayer bedding textiles.Design/methodology/approachIn this study, woven and knitted multilayer bedding textiles were manufactured from fabric, fiber, sponge and interlining, respectively. Different sponge thickness, fiber and interlining weight were used in the layers of samples. Later, the pilling resistance, compression and recovery, air permeability and thermal conductivity of multilayer bedding textiles were investigated.FindingsThe results indicated that samples with the higher layer weight and thickness provide better compression recovery and lower air permeability properties. It was also found that knitted surfaces show the higher air permeability than the woven surfaces depending on the fabric porosity. Layer properties have insignificant effect on the thermal conductivity values.Originality/valueWhile researchers mostly focus on thermal comfort properties of garments, there are limited studies about comfort properties of bedding textiles in the literature. Furthermore, compression recovery properties of bedding textiles have also a great importance in terms of comfort. Originality of this study is that these properties were analyzed together.


2019 ◽  
Vol 121 (2) ◽  
pp. 400-410 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rinaldo Botondi

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to evaluate the possible microbiological contamination in terms of total counts and representative microbial groups found in the hazelnuts as well as in work areas and on the working surfaces of a hazelnut processing plant.Design/methodology/approachSome microbiological parameters related to the manufacturing process (e.g. aerobic colony count yeast and fungi) were evaluated. Indoor air samples were tested in order to evaluate the possible contamination of fungal strains (i.e. mycotoxin producing fungi).FindingsThe results showed that the highest values (>of 500 CFU/m3) for bacteria and fungi were only observed in the shelling and sorting areas. Some species such as Aspergillus and Penicillium (potential mycotoxin-producers) as well as some noxious colonies ofAspergillus fumigatuswere detected along the processing line. No occurrence of aflatoxins was observed in the finished product. Microbial loads obtained through surface analyses were in accordance to the reference data.Originality/valueThe aim of this study was to monitor and improve the procedures currently used in a hazelnut processing plant.


2017 ◽  
Vol 156 ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Omrani ◽  
Veronica Garcia-Hansen ◽  
Bianca R. Capra ◽  
Robin Drogemuller

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