Buoyancy-driven natural ventilation characteristics of thermal corridors in industrial buildings

Abstract

The continuous setup of heating plants such as kilns and boilers may form thermal corridors in industrial buildings resulting in high air temperature, which could be harmful to workers. To solve these problems, this study presents an investigation of the buoyancy-driven natural ventilation of a high-temperature corridor via computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation. First, a field measurement was conducted in a typical thermal corridor of a ceramic factory to define the boundary conditions for the simulation. Then, a CFD model was established and validated using reduced-scaled model experimental data. Next, the flow and temperature fields of the thermal corridor under buoyancy-driven natural ventilation were examined using the verified model. It was shown that the natural ventilation in the side corridor is generated by an asymmetric heat channel, and the flow in the main corridor belongs to the natural convection of a semi-closed square heating cavity. Finally, the single-story industrial building aspect ratio was fixed at 3.3, and five different parameters of building and heating plant setups on the natural ventilation in corridors were analysed. For example, the heat source and air opening aspect ratios varied from 12.5 to 50 and from 25 to 100, respectively. The results indicated that the height of the heat source bottom has a more significant effect on the indoor thermal environment than other situations. The maximum ventilation flow rate was observed at the heat source position zs/H = 0.04 and opening position H0/H = 0.05. When the overhead height zs/H reached 0.08, the flow in the main corridor turned to a symmetric heat channel, and the temperature in this region decreased sharply. This research can provide a reference for the natural ventilation design of high-temperature corridors in factories.