CFD simulations of thermal comfort in naturally ventilated primary school classrooms

Abstract

The purpose of thermal comfort is to specify the combinations of indoor space environment and personal factors that will produce thermal environment conditions acceptable to 80% or more of the occupants within a space. Naturally ventilated indoors has a very complex air movement, which depends on numerous variables such as: outdoor interaction, intensity of infiltration, the number of openings, the thermal inertia of walls, occupant behaviors, etc. The most important mechanism for naturally ventilated indoors is the intensity of infiltration and thermal buoyancy mechanism. In this study the objective was to determine indicators of thermal comfort for children, by the CFD model based on experimental measurements with modification on turbulent and radiant heat transfer mathematical model. The case study was selected on school children of 8 and 9 years in "France Presern" primary school in Belgrade. The purpose was to evaluate the relationships between the indoor environment and the subjective responses. Also there was analysis of infiltration and stack effect based on meteorological data on site. The main parameters that were investigated are: operative temperature, radiant temperature, concentration of CO 2 , and air velocity. The new correction of turbulence and radiative heat transfer models has been validated by comparison with experimental data using additional statistical indicators. It was found that both turbulence model correct and the new radiative model of nontransparent media have a significant influence on CFD data set accuracy.

Influence of the building energy efficiency on indoor air temperature: The case of a typical school classroom in Serbia

“…The CFD is well established tool for simulation of ventilation and ventilation systems [18,19] and smoke extraction systems [20,21]. The CFD is also an important tool in improving building health and safety [22][23][24], thermal comfort for the occupants' spaces [25,26], testing energy-efficient designs [27,28], etc. The CFD modelling has been frequently applied for the thermal comfort and energy efficiency assessment within the IAQ studies of school buildings.…”

Thermal comfort prediction of air-conditioned and passively cooled engineering testing centres in a higher educational institution using CFD

“…CFD software is also capable of analysing the air temperature and velocity profiles of the entire building space, including the evaluation of thermal comfort (Pichurov et al, 2014;Risberg et al, 2018). Building types that have been analysed using CFD include educational institutes (Stevanovic et al, 2016;Ghosh et al, 2016;Song and Meng, 2015), offices (Gangisetti et al, 2016;Zhai and Chen, 2006), dwellings (Prakash and Ravikumar, 2015; Barbason and Reiter, 2014;Yang and Kim, 2016) and others, which included naturally aired spaces of various functions (Hamzah et al, 2016;Hajdukiewicz et al, 2013;Wu et al, 2012). Models which represented the actual buildings or building spaces were developed, and all relevant environmental parameters that are essential for simulation purposes, which were either measured in situ or estimated based on the given values in building standards, were then incorporated.…”

Experimental and statistical survey on local thermal comfort impact on working productivity loss in university classrooms

“…The data from 10 educational spaces, in 32 measurements, using 490 questionnaires was collected. Stevanović [8] and Stevanović et al [9] measured thermal comfort indices among children in primary school in Serbia, aged eight to nine, and defined the turbulence models of air flow in school buildings.…”