A study on natural ventilation of dormitories for college students in northeast China during spring: A case of linear-shaped dormitory buildings

Abstract

This study employed computational fluid dynamics to investigate the natural ventilation efficiency and indoor air temperature changes in different rooms of a linear-shaped dormitory building at a university in northeastern China during the spring season. Using a four-student dormitory in Jilin City as a physical model. Volume ratio of air age curves, depicting indoor air quality, are constructed based on air age values. Due to the dormitory building's symmetry, five wind angles, averaged from 0° to 90° (N - E), are chosen as typical. The results indicate that, following adequate ventilation, the average indoor air temperature (Temstabilize) can be stabilized above 11 °C in rooms located on the leeward side of the dormitory building. Specifically, rooms located on the upwind area at wind angles of 22.5° and 45°, as well as rooms near the environmental air inlets and outlets at wind angles of 67.5° and 90°, can maintain an average air temperature above 15 °C. However, the minimum continuous ventilation time (Tmin) required for these rooms exceeds 1200 s. On the windward side of the dormitory building, rooms near the environmental air inlets and outlets exhibit high ventilation efficiency, but the air temperature in these rooms decreases more rapidly. When the wind angle is 45°, 67.5°, or 90°, the average indoor temperature in these rooms falls below 11 °C. Through normalization analysis, a significant linear relationship is observed between Tmin and Temstabilize data, represented by the numerical relationship Tminnorm=1.0134×Temstabilizenorm. The findings of this study are valuable for assisting students in developing ventilation plans and can also serve as a reference for architects designing dormitory buildings based on prevailing wind directions in the area.