Six-month Review – Natural Ventilation, P004,082, Feb_July 2003 CMI Project Review: Natural Ventilation, Solar Heating and Integrated low-energy Building

Six-month Review – Natural Ventilation, P004,082, Feb_July 2003

CMI Project Review:

Natural Ventilation, Solar Heating and Integrated low-energy Building

Design Feb1,2003- July 31, 2003

Cambridge PI, Andrew Woods, BP Institute

MIT PI, Leon Glicksman, Architecture and Mechanical Engineering


Natural Ventilation, Solar Heating and Integrated low-energy Building Design

Brief Description of Project:• Draw together experts involved in architectural

design, building engineering, natural ventilation processes, from Cambridge, MIT and BP.

• Carry out parallel fundamental research, building monitoring and joint design projects,

• Build up the foundations of this key emerging discipline in building design.


Summary of Intended Outcomes:

Develop designs and technologies to: • Reduce energy costs of maintaining a comfortable

environment with buildings through use of, natural ventilation processes, solar power and improved building materials;

• Improve air quality within buildings, to mitigate against sick building syndrome;

• Improve emergency building ventilation in case of discharge of hazardous gases or fires.

• Communicate these technologies to the architectural and building engineering communities


Progress In Past Six MonthsImportant activities, collaborations:• There has been continuous collaboration between

MIT (Architecture, EECS, Mechanical Engineering) and

• CU (Martin Centre, BPI) working on joint projects in UK and US.

• Exchange of students, staff for short periods, multiple joint meetings in UK, US: at least 6 per year.

• Joint participation in presenting short courses, conference workshops for industry professionals and academics from other universities.


Progress (Cont.)

• CU and MIT have maintained close cooperation with industry on monitoring of advanced buildings, design, analysis and planning of innovative facilities.

• Ongoing meeting with BP Global Property Management and Services in UK and US on major new BP sites. – Aberdeen Headquarters

– Naperville, Il advanced laboratory


Progress (Cont)

• Monitoring of naturally ventilated office building in Luton UK

• Development of analytical and numerical solutions for natural ventilation flows and energy interaction in buildings has continued.

• Work has continued on a web based design tool for architects, engineers and planners


Professional Courses offered by CMI on Natural Ventilation,

Sustainable Buildings• Cambridge U 2001 for architects, engineers,

developers• UC San Diego 2001 for architects, engineers,

developers• MIT 2002 for architects, engineers, developers• Cambridge U 2003 for graduate students• MIT 2003 for architects, engineers, developers• Edinburgh 2003 CIBSE/ASHRAE for architects,

engineers, developers


CMI work with BP on Sustainable Buildings

• Aberdeen UK headquarters design

• Sunbury UK monitoring

• Bath UK general meeting

• Naperville Illinois monitoring and survey

• Naperville Illinois advanced laboratory design


Sustainable Building Materials

• Reduce the environmental impacts associated with structural materials for building.

• Interdisciplinary approach: combining materials technology and regulatory policy.

• Assess data on life cycle impacts of the most common structural materials: steel and concrete.

• Evaluate the potential of breakthrough materials technologies like eco-cement, which could drastically reduce the CO2 emissions associated with Portland Cement


Load Monitoring• In a parallel project, MIT is developing a set of power

monitors that can discern and track individual electrical loads from a central location within a building, thereby reducing the cost to obtain valuable information about energy usage and operating faults.

• As part of the CMI project, MIT is working with researchers at Cambridge to extend this technology.

• Make the load monitor as easy to install as possible for small buildings and for temporary load-monitoring programs


Milestones achieved:• Several professional courses have been presented on

natural ventilation and sustainable building design for architects, engineers and planners in the UK and US.

• A day long workshop session has been presented at the CIBSE/ASHRAE international conference in Edinburgh.

• A Beta version of the web based design tool is available This includes energy savings and comfort indices for naturally ventilated buildings.


Natural Ventilation

Air Flow in Buildings

Influenced By:

• Wind Velocity and Direction

• Building Exterior Geometry

• Building Interior Geometry

• Temperature Difference – Inside/Outside

Buoyancy


Level of Understanding

1. Overall Air Flow through Space:

Treat Building as a Whole• Simple Model for Individual Rooms, Zones

• Use Simple Computation Tools and Experimental Models

Yields:

• Overall Energy Balance

• Approximate Flow Rate


Detailed Flow Understanding Within Room

• Apply Laws of PhysicsConservation of MassMomentum BalanceConservation of Energy

• Solve for Temperature, Velocity, Pollutant Distribution


Experimental Validation is Crucial

• Full scale or properly scaled models

• Operate over range of conditions expected

• Measure overall flow behavior

• Measure detailed distribution: – Temperature– Velocity– Concentration of pollutants


Example: BP Sunbury Design with Natural Ventilation


Summer Natural Ventilation

0

50

100

150

200

250

25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35

Temperature (°C)

An

nu

al #

of

Ho

urs

Exc

eed

ed

Sunbury Existing

Sunbury No Floor Plenum

Sunbury No Ceiling Plenum

Aberdeen Existing

Aberdeen No Floor Plenum

Aberdeen No Ceiling Plenum


Natural Ventilated Building, Aldwyck Housing-Luton England


Luton Building Interior


Air temperature distribution of CFD Air temperature distribution of CFD simulation resultsimulation result


Airflow pattern compared between Airflow pattern compared between simulation and visualizationsimulation and visualization

Visualized air flow directionVisualized air flow direction


Comparison of CU scale models with Comparison of CU scale models with water with MIT CFD predictionswater with MIT CFD predictions

Buoyancy influence on turbulenceBuoyancy influence on turbulence

a). C3=0.5 b). C3=10 c). Experiment

The flow patterns of CFD simulation at 3mm grid size and different The flow patterns of CFD simulation at 3mm grid size and different C3 values (a, b) and experimental flow (c) C3 values (a, b) and experimental flow (c)


Luton Air Model-MIT

10th Scale Model of Luton BuildingAirflow Measurements compare to buildingAirflow Visualization techniques





Mechanical Pure natural Hybrid ventilation


Mechanical Pure natural Hybrid ventilation


Deliverables completed:


Plans For Next Six Months• Expected activities, collaborations :

– Continuation of full scale monitoring

– Continuation of analytical and numerical research on natural ventilation

– Planning short courses in UK and US

– Continue web based design advisor


Expected milestones:• Q1 (1 Aug 2003 - 31 Oct 2003)

– Presentation of a one day session at the CIBSE/ASHRAE International Conference Preliminary full scale monitoring of naturally ventilated commercial building in Luton UK.

• Q2 (1 Nov 2003 - 31 Jan 2004)– Construction and preliminary testing of scale model of

Luton building.– Preparation of 2 or 3 papers for 2004 Room Vent

conference based on monitoring and CFD results for the Luton building

– Meeting with BP on advanced laboratory and office facilities plans.


Milestones (Cont)• Q3 (1 Feb 2004 - 30 Apr 2004) Validation

of analytical and CFD models based on the full scale results at Luton.

• Q4 (1 May 2004 - 31 July 2004)– Presentation of a short course on natural

ventilation at CU, MIT or alternate location.


Other Items• Developments worth publicizing:

– Workshop – Courses – Web based design tool– Participation in China Development Forum, Development Research Center of the Chinese

State Council

• Modifications to statement of work and/or funding:

• Expected financial profile:– Approximately on budget

• Anything else:


Challenges And/or Issues To Address

• Problem/Concern:

• Plan for resolution:

• How CMI can help:

Documents

Six-month Review – Natural Ventilation, P004,082, Feb_July 2003 CMI Project Review: Natural Ventilation, Solar Heating and Integrated low-energy Building