Analysis and optimization of the thermal comfort of a non airconditioned16 000 m2 tent, with transient and cfd simulations

The Haima is a non air-conditioned 16,000 m2  tent designed to house fifteen exhibitions about conditions for peace, viewed as solutions to economic, cultural and environmental conflict, during the Barcelona Forum 2004. The Haima is composed of several tents connected to each other’s and to the exterior environment through large openings. The whole structure is placed on the middle of a large square, next to the Mediterranean Sea. 
The aim of the study is to analyze and optimize the thermal comfort of the Haima taking into account the specific external conditions (weather data), the internal conditions (occupancy, gains, etc.), the materials and all the parameters that affect this singular construction. The main objective was to avoid any HVAC equipment and to assure that the visitants would be comfortable. To do so, some transient simulations have been carried out using TRNSYS software (SEL, 2003) to obtain the internal temperatures and thermal comfort indexes. These temperatures were further exported as boundary conditions to a CFD code to carry out natural and forced convection airflow simulations inside the tents to improve the reliability of the thermal analysis. The CFD code is a finite element code developed at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia. Any details on the formulation can be found in the internal monographs (Codina 1993) and (Houzeaux and Codina 2002). 
This paper explains the methodology used in the project, analyze the proposals made to improve the thermal comfort of the Haima by the authors to the design team and present the results.