Analysis of Calculation Errors for Single-zone and Multi-Zone Natural Ventilation model in Residential Building

Zheqi Xuan,Zhenni Shi,Xiaohong Zheng,C.-H Weng,R Weerasinghe

doi:10.1051/e3sconf/20185303034

Abstract

The typical residential building in Changzhou City, Jiangsu Province was selected for natural ventilation measurement during the transitional season, the plum rainy season, summer and winter. In this paper, SF6 is used as the tracer gas, and tracer gas decay method was selected to obtain the air change rate in the room under each measuring condition. EnergyPlus(EP) was used to calculate the single-zone and multizone air change rate which can be compared with the measured values respectively. It was found that the calculated values of single-zone model were generally small and the errors were large. And the calculated values of multi-zone model have a significant reduction in error after considering the equivalent infiltration area. In addition, the effective infiltration area will be different due to the existence of the thermal expansion coefficient for different seasons.

Highlights

Residential buildings mainly rely on infiltration and natural ventilation to achieve ventilation
Statistical survey results show that 86.8% of typical residential residents in northern China chose single-sided ventilation[1]
When the doors and windows are closed, the air change rate in residential building is between 0.02~0.8 h-1[2]

Summary

Introduction

Residential buildings mainly rely on infiltration and natural ventilation to achieve ventilation. Statistical survey results show that 86.8% of typical residential residents in northern China chose single-sided ventilation[1]. When the doors and windows are closed, the air change rate in residential building is between 0.02~0.8 h-1[2]. The energy consumption caused by infiltration reaches 10.5%~27.4% of the total building energy consumption[3]. EnergyPlus (EP) is commonly used as the energy consumption simulation software. The natural ventilation module contains empirical model and multi-zone model. It integrates multiple models used in ventilation simulation software such as COMTAM and COMIS. The values of single-zone and multi-zone air change rate in residential buildings are calculated by EnergyPlus(EP). Compare the calculated values with measured values by combing the thermal expansion coefficient

Field Measurement

EP Single-zone Simulation Results

Conclusions