Assessment of Ventilation’s Control Strategies adapted to Large Buildings

The absolute necessity of air renewal to maintain indoor air quality and thermal comfort in buildingsfaces the major issue of energy consumption reduction and optimisation in building sector. Manystudies carried out so far point out the performances improved thanks to the recourse to ventilationstrategies and control algorithms in the aim of optimising the energy consumption of air renewal, butvery few of them could assess the performances in the particular case of large buildings despite thepotential energy gains it represents considering the great volume and huge air flow rates induced. Due to particular geometry, dimensions and occupancy in large buildings, new parameters have to be integrated in the development of ventilations control strategies adapted to such buildings that the work presented aims to assess.The studied controllers adapted to large buildings and the results of their assessment are described,analysed and discussed throughout this paper.Through experimental set-up and numerical development of a CFD model of a study case of largebuilding, ventilations control strategies, integrating fuzzy logic, are first worked out, then assessedwith both experimental measurements and numerical simulations. The strategies are based on thehuman occupancy considered unsteady in large buildings and changing in both space and time, which allows not uniform air change rates inside the air distribution system.Results of assessment, by means of definition of performances functions, stress the goodperformances of the developed controllers in terms of indoor air quality, thermal comfort and energyconsumption limitations. It has appeared that the ventilations control strategies allowed to reachsatisfactory interior environment regarding indoor air quality and thermal comfort criteria, while theenergy consumption of air renewal and air conditioning device could be largely reduced.