Airflow modelling software development for natural ventilation design

As the benefit of natural ventilation in reducing operational cost is well recognised, the concept of natural ventilation is becoming more received by residents and designers alike. For decades, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) has been employed by the architectural and heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) profession, as the modeling tool is able to provide detailed airflow analysis in aiding the incorporation of innovative natural ventilation concept into the building design phase.  However, major bottlenecks for the widespread implementation of this  tool has been the time-consuming effort required to prepare clean and compliant building geometry data for the CFD mesh generation process, as well as the high cost associated with the CFD specialists. With Singapore Building and Construction Authority’s (BCA) initiative to launch the national usage of Building Information Modeling (BIM) solutions for the building industry, IHPC, together with Building Systems & Diagnostic & RightViz Solutions Pte. Ltd, has developed the Green Building Environment Simulation Technology (GrBEST) software to provide an integration of BIM and CFD simulation in one simple, time efficient and cost effective building airflow modeling tool.