The Effect of Circulating Fan and Natural Ventilation on the Thermal Comfort Performance in a Building in Southeast Sulawesi

Abstract

The unbalance on the supply and demand on the energy has an impact on the escalating energy price and potentially impedes the development. One of the power demands comes from the energy utilization in the building sector, in which the cooling system is among them. The application of the air conditioning based on the refrigerator system is obviously consuming much energy in the building. Thus reducing the role of this power consumed cooling system is so imperative. To apply the circulating fan or to employ the natural ventilation are among the alternative approaches to make a building cooler, without much consuming energy. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect the circulating fan and the natural ventilation, on the temperature and the humidity in a building in Southeast Sulawesi, a region with its high daily solar radiation. It conducts an experiment on a building model incorporated with the ventilation and the circulating fan. The result shows that by incorporating these alternative cooling devices, the temperatures in the building can be lower than that of a closed building (no fan and no ventilation). The magnitude in the decreasing on the temperature for the building with circulating fan is higher than that of the ventilation. Another result on the investigation shows that the relative humidity in the building with the circulating fan or the ventilation is relatively higher than that of the closed building.

Scale Model Studies of Different Ventilation Strategies for Tropical Public Housing in Surabaya

“…The primary function is to remove the excess indoor heat and accelerate the convection process and evaporative cooling. Results of the ventilation study in tropical buildings have demonstrated that mechanical ventilation can improve indoor thermal conditions, whether complimentary or the sole strategy [5]. Mechanical ventilation can induce air velocity, which is very beneficial from the standpoint of physiological cooling [17].…”

“…Previous studies stated that natural ventilation should be encouraged in tropical housing if the objective is to limit energy consumption and operating cost [3,4]. Yet other studies also indicate that natural ventilation alone is insufficient [5]. These arguments owe to the fact that wind condition varies over time, and architectural features tend to be fixed or less flexible.…”

“…Studies proposing mechanical ventilation as a strategy for improving comfort found that this strategy can help to remove excess heat from internal space and replace it with cooler air [5]. The ventilation 1218 (2023) 012041 IOP Publishing doi:10.1088/1755-1315/1218/1/012041 2 provision is constant and less dependent on external climatic conditions.…”