Variation of Indoor Airflow Patterns under Dynamic Outdoor Wind Conditions in Large Space Naturally Ventilated Buildings

Abstract

Understanding Indoor Airflow Patterns (IAPs) helps control air contaminants in large naturally ventilated buildings (NVBs). However, the effect of random and unpredictable changes in outdoor wind conditions (OWC) is a major contributor to the variation in IAPs in the NVBs, making the IAP uncontrollable. This study presents the results of field measurements and numerical simulation in a NBV to study the IAP variation characteristic under the dynamical OWC. The OWC data monitored in real time was processed with Kalman Filtering (KF) and the gradient method to decompose the data prior to being entered into the CFD solver. The trend was similar between the simulated and measured data of a full size NVB. In addition, the distribution of internal turbulence intensity varied widely depending on the spatial locations and time intervals. The variation in speeds in the vicinity of windbreaks greatly affected the variation in IAP on a certain frequency scale. The results not only prove that CFD simulation to be an efficient tool for the prediction of time-averaged IAP, but also initialize efficient measures for the control of IAQ in dynamic OWC of large space NVBs.