Abstract
Energy efficiency and indoor air quality (IAQ) are two crucial required features in a building. Simultaneous improvement of energy efficiency and IAQ in a building can pave the way for obtaining a green building certification. This paper examined the performance of the airflow windows’ supply and exhaust operating modes in energy-saving and providing IAQ criteria. The analytical zonal model coupled with the airflow network model was used to evaluate the system’s thermal performance and the induced airflow. The simulation was done for an office building located in Shiraz, Iran. The results showed that the energy performance of ventilated windows is positive in nine months of the year. Compared to a conventional double-glazed window, the maximum energy savings is about 10%, which occurs in August. It is predicted that using ventilated windows in office buildings in Shiraz can improve the window’s thermal performance by an average of about 5%. The results also showed that ventilated windows could provide the fresh air needed for the building in 250 days of the year to achieve the desired IAQ index (based on ASHRAE 62.1 standard). Furthermore, the effects of glass aspect ratio, airflow channel thickness, and the size of inlet/outlet openings on energy efficiency and IAQ of the suggested window were studied. Results indicated that in the climatic conditions of Shiraz, the exhaust operating mode is much more efficient than the supply mode.
Highlights
Indoor Air Quality (IAQ), as an essential part of Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ), has a significant effect on the health and productivity of the building occupants
Poor indoor air quality has been connected to Sick Building Syndrome (SBS), lower productivity, which can be harmful to vulnerable groups such as children, young adults, the elderly, or those suffering chronic respiratory and cardiovascular diseases [1]
The present work examined the thermal performance of the naturally ventilated window and its capability to provide adequate fresh air flow rate according to indoor air quality standards
Summary
Indoor Air Quality (IAQ), as an essential part of Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ), has a significant effect on the health and productivity of the building occupants. Its structure allows exchanging air between outdoors and indoors while reducing the building cooling and heating loads resulting from the window [6]. Gosselin and Chen [6] carried out experimentally validated computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations on a proposed dual airflow window to optimize the window design They claimed that their proposed ventilated window improves IAQ, no quantitative results in IAQ parameters were reported. Zhang et al [13] studied the influence of ventilated windows on indoor PM2.5 and CO2 concentration and the overall energy consumption They reported that the increase of energy consumption due to indoor air quality improvement is inevitable for their specific proposed ventilated window. The present work aimed at assessing the performance of the naturally ventilated window in energy-saving and provision of IAQ requirement according to ASHRAE 62.1 [4]. It is hoped that the present results can provide a more detailed picture of the benefit of using the ventilated windows in practice
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