A simulation-aided approach in improving thermal-visual comfort and power efficiency in buildings

Abstract

Thermal and visual comfort are important for the health and productivity of occupants in office buildings. In this paper, we present a simulation-aided approach in analyzing and optimizing lighting and thermal conditions in building interiors, encompassing the modelling of the interior space in virtual facilities, ray-tracing simulations for illumination prediction, and computational fluid dynamics/heat transport simulations for airflow and ambient temperature predictions. This is carried out with the aim of optimizing visual-thermal comfort in an indoor environment while adhering to comfort and safety guidelines. We demonstrate the methodology on a real-world case study on an office building in Singapore, improving lighting and thermal conditions greatly through passive daylight fixtures and the reconfiguration of climate-control air supply vents within the office space. A significant reduction of energy consumption was simultaneously achieved, amounting to >7% in lighting and cooling expenditure. The presented methodology allows rapid iteration and evaluation over plausible designs in enhancing indoor environmental quality and building energy performance, especially relevant when performance and sustainability goals have to be balanced.