NATURAL VENTILATION

STUDY REPORT

AAYOJAN SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, JAIPUR Building Services-I October 2011

SUMIT RAINA B.Arch part time II nd year.

Natural ventilation The process of supplying and removing air through an indoor space by natural means. There are two types of natural ventilation occurring in buildings: wind driven ventilation and stack ventilation. The pressures generated by buoyancy, also known as 'the stack effect', The majority of buildings employing natural ventilation rely primarily on wind driven ventilation, but stack ventilation has several benefits. The most efficient design for a natural ventilation building should implement both types of ventilation Human Performance in a Hot Environment In hot stuffy conditions work has little appeal. People need to rest more often and their concentration wanders. Human relations suffer and inevitably performance drops. Research confirms that uncomfortably high or low temperatures, lack of fresh air movement and high humidity leads to lassitude, more accidents and higher absenteeism. The actual number of vents required and the air supply necessary makes allowance for flow resistance based on their exhaust and inlet coefficients. The positioning of the vents is also critical in order to exhaust the smoke without mixing and cooling. AAYOJAN SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, JAIPUR Building Services-I October 2011 The term Natural Ventilation is used to describe ventilation systems which make use of existing thermodynamic forces within a building to draw in fresh air and discharge waste air without the assistance of powered components. Properly designed, manufactured and installed, natural ventilation systems are extremely economic, efficient, self-regulating and require only minimum maintenance. When air in a building is heated by solar effect, product, plant and machinery or other means, it expands, which causes the density to decrease. This results in a reduction in the mass of a given volume. Should this air then be exposed to and in contact with surrounding air that is cooler and heavier, the warmer air will be induced to rise. The rate at which this air rises depends firstly on the temperature difference between the rising column of warmer air and the surrounding cooler air. The greater the temperature differential, the faster the column rises.

SUMIT RAINA B.Arch part time II nd year.

Ventilation strategies

The more common strategies are identified in the following. It is relevant to divide them into two basic categories (isolated and connected spaces). In all cases the flow pattern is such that fresh (external) air enters eachoccupied space. This pattern should be maintained under a wide range of conditions The magnitudes of the flow rates, as distinct from their directions, are involved in Stage 3. Isolated spaces. In some buildings the spaces or rooms can be considered as isolated (in terms of air flow) from other parts of the building. For this to be true, theopenings to other parts of the building must be small inrelation to openings in the external envelope. Figure 3 illustrates such spaces and possible ventilation strategies. Spaces A and B are examples of single-sided ventilation, with a large single opening and two small openings at different heights. Spaces C and D are examples of crossflow ventilation of an isolated floor, again with large and small openings. In both cases the flow pattern is that due to the action of wind alone. Space E shows the flow pattern due to buoyancy alone.

AAYOJAN SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, JAIPUR Building Services-I October 2011

SUMIT RAINA B.Arch part time II nd year.

Connected spaces single-cell building. When the spaces in a building are connected by large internal openings, they effectively form a single-cell, with the flow through any opening dependent on the flow through the other openings. Such spaces are relatively common in naturally ventilated buildings, partly because of the desire to minimize internal resistance to flow and partly to enhance internal mixing. Figure 4 illustrates one such strategy (side A), based on the use of an atrium. The atrium is used to generate inward flow of fresh air into all of the occupied floors i.e. crossflow ventilation of all floors. An advantage of this strategy is that wind and buoyancy will act in unison, provided the outlet opening is in a region of relatively low wind pressure and the internal temperature is higher than the external. The same effect can be obtained by means of a stack (chimney), or possibly a stairwell, although fire safety is an issue here. AAYOJAN SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, JAIPUR Building Services-I October 2011 SUMIT RAINA B.Arch part time II nd year.

AAYOJAN SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, JAIPUR Building Services-I October 2011

SUMIT RAINA B.Arch part time II nd year.

Stack ventilation, can operate when no wind pressure is available. (The absence of wind can occur at certain times, due to its variability, or in certain sites, due to blocking effect of other buildings or vegetation). It can also operate in deep plan buildings where the distance from openings in the perimeter, and the presence of partitions, make winddriven cross ventilation impractical. It must be born in mind that the stack effect can only take place when the average temperature in the stack is greater than the outside air. Three distinct situations can be identified (1) where the stack is formed by the occupied part of the building itself, (2) where the stack exists in the occupied space but where the space is tall (such as in an atrium) and the heated air is well above the heads of the occupants, and (3) as a separate element. When used for cooling, in case (1) the temperature increment may decrease the thermal comfort of the occupants. This may necessitate large openings to keep the temperature increment to a minimum. In case (2), since there are no occupants in the stack zone itself, the temperature increment may be larger. In case (3), there is no effect on the occupants, and the temperature may be deliberately enhanced by solar gains, as in the socalled solar chimney. It is important to reiterate that it is the average temperature of the whole column of air that matters, so any heat input must be made as close as possible to the base of the chimney. AAYOJAN SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, JAIPUR Building Services-I October 2011 SUMIT RAINA B.Arch part time II nd year.