Natural ventilation and low energy cooling of large, non domestic buildings - Four case studies -

The air conditioning of large non-domestic buildings is becoming an increasing trend, even in moderately mild climatic zones. This is often needed to avoid overheating that results from high internal heat gains and solar radiation. This paper describes work, undertaken in the United Kingdom, aimed at minimizing the need for conventional air conditioning in such buildings. Four case studies are presented that demonstrate how dynamic thermal and computational fluid dynamics analysis have been used to assist in the design of a diverse range of naturally ventilated and passively cooled buildings. Cooling solutions included natural ventilation with night cooling (case studies 1 and 2), pre-cooling of the supply air using an underground labyrinth (case study 3), and passive cooling combined with top up chilled water cooling of the supply air (case study 4). The first two buildings are now occupied and demonstrate good occupant satisfaction. This work demonstrates that numerical modelling techniques played a successful role in the design of innovative, energy efficient buildings.