Climatic based consideration of double skin façade system: natural ventilation performance of a case study with double skin façade in Mediterranean climate

There is an unexploited opportunity to employ either fully naturally ventilated, or partially, when mixed with mechanical ventilation in buildings in Mediterranean climate. The possibility of exploiting natural ventilation due to complexity of physical phenomena that is non-linearity, chaotic behaviour of air movement, demands a major tool  “Computational Fluid Dynamics” (CFD)1 for design analyses. Fluent was used to study the airflow and temperature distribution in the occupied spaces evaluating different possibility of exploiting natural ventilation for different outside conditions. In this study two driving forces-wind and stack effect (buoyancy forces)- are investigated to study the possibility of providing comfort in the building.  The results document the indoor climate, the boundary conditions for further planning and the possibilities for high-rise buildings with the new innovative enclosure. The primary goal of this research is to clarify the state-of-the-art performance of DSFs, so that designers can assess the value of these building concepts in meeting design goals for thermal comfort, ventilation, and sustainability. This investigation adopts an analytical approach using dynamic simulation software (Energy Plus/Designbuilder), to understand the performance of a double skin façade based on research rather than intuition