Dynamic simulation of atrium thermal environment aiding building design

Atrium is becoming a popular common space in commercial buildings nowadays. In planning the thermal environment and air-conditioning system for an atrium, it is necessary to calculate a cooling load for the occupied zone and to predict the vertical temperature distribution. Besides, the thermal environment varies with time, so dynamic thermal environment analysis, including prediction of vertical temperature, is required. The building design process of the atrium consists of several different stages. The aim of this research is to develop a modular for dynamic simulation of atrium thermal environment in the stage of architecture design. Except for heat transfer by conduction and convection, long-wave radiation, solar radiation and indoor thermal disturbance are also used to describe the atrium thermal environment in the simulation. The development is based on the building dynamic simulation tool DeST. The authors also apply this method to an atrium that is affected by transmitted solar radiation, and analysis the simulation results.