Determination of a Methodology to Derive Correlations Between Window Opening Mass Flow Rate and Wind Conditions Based on CFD Results

Abstract

This paper presents a methodology for the development of an empirical equation which can provide the air mass flow rate imposed by single-sided wind-driven ventilation of a room, as a function of external wind speed and direction, using the results from Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations. The proposed methodology is useful for a wide spectrum of applications, in which no access to experimental data or conduction of several CFD runs is possible, deriving a simple expression of natural ventilation rate, which can be further used for energy analysis of complicated building geometries in 0-D models or in object-oriented software codes. The developed computational model simulates a building, which belongs to Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule (RWTH, Aachen University, Aachen, Germany) and its surrounding environment. A tilted window represents the opening that allows the ventilation of the adjacent room with fresh air. The derived data from the CFD simulations for the air mass flow were fitted with a Gaussian function in order to achieve the development of an empirical equation. The numerical simulations have been conducted using the Ansys Fluent v15.0® software package. In this work, the k-w Shear Stress Transport (SST) model was implemented for the simulation of turbulence, while the Boussinesq approximation was used for the simulation of the buoyancy forces. The coefficient of determination R2 of the curve is in the range of 0.84–0.95, depending on the wind speed. This function can provide the mass flow rate through the open window of the investigated building and subsequently the ventilation rate of the adjacent room in air speed range from 2.5 m/s to 16 m/s without the necessity of further numerical simulations.