EFFECT ON OPENINGS ON THE THERMAL

COMFORT OF BUILDINGS
V.P.Dhanapriya,
PG scholar, School of Civil Engineering,
Karunya University, Coimbatore
641114, India.
Email dhanapriya1491@gmail.com

Cristopher gunasingh.K
Sr.Executive Engineer,
Karunya University, Coimbatore
641114, India.
Email christogsingh@gmail.com

Abstract Design of buildings that takes advantage

of the prevailing climate and natural energy resources,
such as daylight, wind and thermal buoyancy, to achieve a
comfortable environment while minimizing energy use
and reliance on mechanical systems is the need for
construction of buildings in today market. Hence in this
project analytical investigation carried out using in Ansys
to study the thermal comfort of buildings by various
parameters like orientation, wind direction, shading etc .

Keywordscomponent; formatting; style; styling; insert (key

words)

I.

INTRODUCTION

This Thermal comfort is complex and partly subjective. It

depends on many factors, of which air temperature, humidity,
air movement, thermal radiation, the metabolic rate and the
level of clothing are fundamental. In hot humid climates, a
significant amount of energy can be saved if cooling needs can
be minimised. In general, to achieve this, solar and conductive
heat gains should be contained, and natural ventilation
promoted for cooling and humidity removal. Some of the key
strategies for minimising cooling need involve appropriate
orientation and spatial organisation, shading, appropriate use
of materials, colours, textures and vegetation.
Orientation and spatial organisation affect the ability
of a building to ventilate and receive solar radiation. In hot
climates, materials for building envelopes and the surrounding
surfaces, such as walkways and terraces, should help minimise
heat gains into the buildings. Vegetation can be an effective
means of moderating the temperature around a building and
reducing the buildings cooling requirement. Vegetation in the
form of trees, climbers, high shrubs and pergolas, for example,
can provide effective shading for the buildings walls and
windows.
Ventilate cooling by wind technique which relies on
wind force to produce pressure differences between the
interior and exterior of a building, leads to internal air
movement and heat removal from the interior. Roof pond

Dr. G.Hemalatha
HOD, School of civil engineering,
Karunya Univeristy, Coimbatore
641114, India.
Email hod_civil@karunya.edu

system collects water on the roof of a building and lets it

evaporate. The evaporation cools the roof which then serves as
a heat sink for the interior. Where collection of water on the
roof is not possible, for structural reasons for instance, water
may be sprayed onto the roof surface as an alternative to the
roof pond. A roof garden can provide cooling in several ways.
In hot humid climates where the humidity level is often above
the comfortable limit, dehumidification is an important part of
thermal comfort strategy.
Researches have worked on thermal comfort of
buildings considering various parameters
Jong-uk bu(1996) Designed and fabricated a silicon based
TCS (thermal comfort sensing) device. The thermal comfort
sensor appears to be highly sensitive to air flow and fairly
sensitive to radiation, but is quite insensitive to humidity.
Stphane hameurya(2003) studied the indoor climate within
an acceptable range making use of large exposed massive
wood surfaces. The outcome of this project may encourage
valuable knowledge for the use of massive wood element in
building construction through a design that also considers
physical and economic factors related to indoor thermal
comfort. Akashi mochidaa et al(2005)
confirmed that a
comfortable indoor thermal environment could be attained in a
considerable part over summer by controlling the window
opening in order to maintain the PMV value within the range
_0.5oPMVo+0.5.The effects of planted tree arrangements
around the building, openings locations and size of openings
in the building are numerically investigated using CFD
analysis.
Torwong chenvidyakarn(2007) asses edit Passive design that
can be referred to a way of designing buildings that takes
advantage of the prevailing climate and natural energy
resources, such as daylight, wind and thermal buoyancy, to
achieve a comfortable environment while minimising energy
use and reliance on mechanical systems. R. hseggen(2008)
Presented the potential energy savings and thermal comfort
benets of exposing concrete in the ceiling to the indoor air as
an alternative to suspended ceiling. The performances were
assessed through monitoring of room air and surface
temperatures in an ofce building in operation, and simulation
of different scenarios with a calibrated building simulation

model. The results presented in this paper indicate that

exposed concrete in the ceiling both reduces the number of
hours with excessive temperatures considerably and create a
better and more stable thermal environment during the
working day. G.M. stavrakakis(2009) studied the effect of
the opening size and building direction on night hours thermal
comfort in a naturally ventilated rural house. Initially, the
airflow in and around the building is simulated using a
validated computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model. It is
demonstrated that the proposed methodology leads to reliable
thermal comfort predictions, while the optimum design
variables are easily recognized .Jiang he(2010) Developed
passive cooling strategy to control increased surface
temperatures and create cooler urban environments, a passive
evaporative cooling wall (PECW) constructed of pipe-shaped
ceramics that possess a capillary force to absorb water up to a
level higher than 130 cm is developed. Laura klein(2011)
This paper presents and implements a multi-agent comfort and
energy system (MACES) to model alternative management
and control of building systems and occupants. Ashok
kumar(2012) Better insulation having low thermal
conductivity is a signicant contributor for new construction
and retrotting existing buildings, when the emphasis is on
energy efciency. This paper presents analytical investigation
using CFD analysis to study the temperature variation inside
the auditorium by varying opening sizes.
II.

MODEL.1

Fig.1 CFD model with five Windows

MODEL.2

ANALYTICAL INVESTIGATION

The auditorium was designed for a seating capacity of 1000

and the size of the auditorium was 14mX10m.To study the
temperature variation inside the auditorium the openings in the
form of windows was provided as % of the flooring: For the
study the windows were placed in two positions namely (1)
aligned in horizontal line (2) aligned at an inclination of the
wind was allowed to flow at an incident angle of 90 0 to the
longer face of the building, orienting the building in wind
direction of NE.
Four cases for considered for the analysis
24% opening of the floor area model1
28% opening of the floor area model2
25% opening of the floor area model3
33% opening of the floor area model4
36% opening of the floor area model5
25% opening of the floor area model6
30% opening of the floor area model7
39.5% opening of the floor area model8

Fig.2 CFD model with five Windows at inclination

MODEL.3

III.

ANALYTICAL RESULTS:

Fig.8 TEMPERATURE VARIATION

Fig.4 TEMPERATURE VARIATION

Fig.5 PRESSURE DISTRIBUTION

Fig.9 TEMPERATURE VARIATION

Fig.6 TEMPERATURE VARIATION

Fig.10 TEMPERATURE VARIATION

Fig.11 TEMPERATURE VARIATION

Fig.7 PRESSURE DISTRIBUTION

MODELLING
Modeling of the building was carried out using
GAMBIT. The walls were designed as concrete
element. The velocity of wind was given as 0.7
through the windows at an angle of 900 on the wall.
CFD analysis was carried out using fluent 6.3.26
OBSERVATION
Model M1 (fig1) had an opening area 25% of
the floor area. Four windows were provided in the
long wall at an opening size of 1.5x1.2m.When the
model was analyzed using CFD analysis the
maximum temperature inside the room was 330c (fig
2) and it was observed that it was maximum nearer
the roof since there was no escape for hot air to
move out. To reduce the heat near the (M1V) roof top
ventilator openings were provided as shown in fig 3.
The percentage of opening was 28% of the floor
area. This reduce the temperature to 31.630c (fig 4)
and the temperature near roof reduced for the next
model (fig.5) M2 the size of the opening was kept as
25% of the floor area .The size of the window
opening was 1.5x1.2m for this temperature was
observed that 330c.
CONCLUSION
The variation in temperature for the models is plotted
in fig.14. From the figure the following conclusion
can be drawn
1.The optimum window opening as mentioned in the
National building code is 25-30%.When the %
opening was 24% (model 1),these was increase in
temperature.
2.When 25%-30% of window opening was kept the
temperature was reduced and the least value was at
30o
3.when the windows where provided at an inclination
as kept in auditorium an increase in temperature was
observed. Hence CFD can be an effective method for
analytical investigation for thermal comfort.

Fig.12 TEMPERATURE VARIATION

Fig.13 TEMPERATURE VARIATION

GRAPHICAL REPRESENTATION:

REFERENCES
Fig.14 Comparison of more temperature of different models
[1]
[2]
[3]

[4]

[5]

Dyanna Becker and Daisy Wang(May 2011), Green Roof Heat

Transfer and Thermal Performance Analysis.
Torwong Chenvidyakarn(2007) , Passive Design for Thermal
Comfort in Hot Humid Climates.
Akashi Mochida, Hiroshi Yoshino, Tomoya Takeda, Toshimasa
Kakegawa, Satoshi Miyauchi(2005), Methods for controlling airflow
in and around a building under cross-ventilation to improve indoor
thermal comfort.
Stphane Hameury, Tor Lundstrm (2003),Contribution of indoor
exposed massive wood to a good indoor climate: in situ measurement
campaign.
R. Hseggen , H.M. Mathisen , S.O. Hanssen,(2008), The effect of
suspended ceilings on energy performance and thermal comfort.