Integration of HVAC systems and double facades in buildings

Nowadays the awareness concerning the environmental pollution and the demand of transparent facades in architecture, lead research in finding new solutions to increase the energy performances of the building and the installations as well. Among those, different kind of Double Skin Facades have been studied and several laboratories are still working on them to find a suitable way to apply this technology in buildings. To find out how the constructive parameters affect the performances of the Second Skin Faade and for the purpose of energy saving in building this paper studies the modelling of systems made up by Double Faade coupled with a building. These interactions between the building, the Double Facade and the external environment have been simulated using the simulation code Simulink. The model has been set up to answer questions about: (a) the gradient of pressure along the facades; (b) flow and temperature along the faade; (c) find out the necessity for control; (d) how to split up the Double Facades in compartments in order to have benefits without serious overheating problems. The effect of the depths of the cavity has been shown to influence the Double Faades performances. It has found that due to the pressure gradient, different airflow at different temperature enter the room facing the Double Skin Faade. A control system is then necessary to synchronize all the components involved.