Air flow prediction and evaluation of ventilation effectiveness with different zonal configurations

Abstract

This paper proposes a numerical method for the study of ventilation efficiency in buildings. The developed model is validated with the experimental results of Nielsen [5] who tested the isothermal flow in a scaled model of a ventilated room. A zonal method is used to predict airflow patterns in the same ventilated room. The different equations governing the flow in the room were coded in Matlab for different operating conditions, different zonal configurations of the room and different number of cells (control volumes). The efficiency of the ventilation was determined by calculating the number of air changes per hour (ACH) for each cell. The present results show the importance of the inlet air flow rate, the space resolution and the jet inlet dimensions on the determination of air quality.