Assessment of airwell performance in single-storey terraced houses

Mohd Suffian Misaran Misran and Heng Jin Tham and Christopher Chi Ming Chu and Djamila Harimi (2021) Assessment of airwell performance in single-storey terraced houses. Transactions on Science and Technology, 8. pp. 225-238.

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Abstract

Single-storey terraced housing in Malaysia does not provide thermal comfort to its occupants due to poor dissipation of heat from solar irradiation unless mechanical cooling is installed, which adds to the urban heating island problem. This study is a simple assessment of natural ventilation performance of terrace houses which by law are built with an airwell and sized according to regulations. A typical room of 3 m ? 4 m ? 3 m with an adjacent airwell has been investigated by CFD simulation assuming ambient temperature of 30?C and atmospheric pressure of 101.3 kPa. The results show that with an airwell-chimney of 2.55 m above the roof the test room air velocity could reach 0.6 ms-1 for thermal comfort; while without the protruded chimney adverse cold inflow set in, and the indoor air flow velocity ranged from as low as 0.08 ms-1 to 0.21 ms-1. However, when the protruded chimney was not installed, but with a wiremesh-based blocker of adverse cold inflow installed on the airwell outlet, the indoor air flow velocity consistently reached 0.2-0.3 ms-1, which was about 45% higher than that without the blocker, and was within the recommended range for thermal comfort. The wiremesh blocker of adverse cold inflow could be an option to ventilate effectively single-storey terrace houses without the need of installing tall chimneys.

Item Type:	Article
Keyword:	Airwell, Single-storey, Natural ventilation, CFD, Cold inflow
Subjects:	T Technology > TH Building construction > TH1-9745 Building construction > TH845-895 Architectural engineering. Structural engineering of buildings T Technology > TJ Mechanical engineering and machinery > TJ1-1570 Mechanical engineering and machinery > TJ807-830 Renewable energy sources
Department:	FACULTY > Faculty of Engineering
Depositing User:	ABDULLAH BIN SABUDIN -
Date Deposited:	17 Aug 2023 13:36
Last Modified:	17 Aug 2023 13:36
URI:	https://eprints.ums.edu.my/id/eprint/36466

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