Influence of vents type arrangement on greenhouse thermal driven ventilation

A numerical analysis of the natural ventilation in greenhouseswas performed at no-wind and low-wind speeds with the use of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). Imposed boundary conditions correspond to the average measured experimental values during a ten days period.Numerical predictions of the ventilation efficiency and microclimate distribution of an arch type tunnel greenhouse, a typical Mediterranean-type greenhouse were obtained for various ventilator configurations. Quantitative and qualitative results concerning airflow and air temperature distribution for four different vents configurations were collected and analysed. Numericalpredictions of natural ventilation agreed well with relative published data. Results show the importance of combining roof and sidewall ventilators for efficient thermally driven ventilation.