Comfort in hot season in a mediterranean building. A zonal approach

In the Mediterranean countries, where the active solutions of air-conditioning must be avoided, natural ventilation allows improvement of indoor comfort which is generally critical in hot season, and reduction of building cooling loads.A three-dimensional zonal model for calculating temperature fields and airflow distributions insideunconditioned buildings was developed. Its coupling with a thermal comfort model allows to evaluate the thermal quality of the ambiance by the prediction of a comfort note.This paper presents the use of this model to study the effect of the night natural cross-ventilation on the temperature field and the air velocity distribution inside an unconditioned Tunisian building, and the evaluation of the thermal sensation of its occupants.