A case study of the thermal environment in the airport terminal building under natural ventilation

Abstract

This paper studies the summer natural wind environments inside an airport terminal building under two cases by the method of computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The two cases have different opening areas for glass curtain wall. Case 1 has the opening ratio of 10% while Case 2 has 30%. The paper also uses DeST to simulate the annual natural temperature distribution under two kinds of opening ratio in a whole year. At last, the energy consumptions under two conditions-without opening for glass curtain wall all through the year and with the opening ratio of 30% when air conditioning is not run are calculated respectively. The numerical simulation results show that: when the opening ratio of the glass curtain wall is 10%, the summer indoor natural wind environment is bad. The air change rate is less than 6times/h. But when the opening ratio is increased to 30%, the summer indoor natural wind environment becomes better. The air change rate goes above 10times/h. In addition, if 10% opening area of the glass curtain wall is opened completely all through the year, there are at least 2707 hours in which air conditioning is not needed for the airport terminal building. But when 30% opening area is opened completely in a whole year, there are at least 5398 hours in which air conditioning is not needed. In a whole year, if air conditioning is run to make heat or cool when the indoor natural temperature is less than 16°C or higher than 29°C, opening 30% of the glass curtain wall at the time that air conditioning is not run can save 21% of the energy that the case without opening in a whole year consumes. Increasing natural ventilation in summer can decrease the cooling load effectively. But in winter, increasing natural ventilation may increase the heating load.