NUMERICAL STUDY ON AIRFLOW AND TEMPERATURE DISTRIBUTION IN AN AIRPORT TERMINAL BUILDING UNDER NATURAL VENTILATION

The summer natural wind environments inside an airport terminal building under two cases aresimulated by the method of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) in this paper. The two cases havedifferent opening areas for glass curtain wall. Case 1 has the opening ratio of 10% while Case 2 has30%. The paper also uses DeST to simulate the annual natural temperature distribution under twokinds of opening ratio in a whole year. At last, the energy consumptions under two conditionswithoutopening for glass curtain wall all through the year and with the opening ratio of 30% when airconditioning is not run are calculated respectively. The numerical simulation results show that: whenthe opening ratio of the glass curtain wall is 10%, the summer indoor natural wind environment is bad.The air change rate is less than 6times/h. But when the opening ratio is increased to 30%, the summerindoor natural wind environment becomes better. The air change rate goes above 10times/h. Inaddition, if 10% opening area of the glass curtain wall is opened completely all through the year, thereare at least 2707 hours in which air conditioning is not needed for the airport terminal building. Butwhen 30% opening area is opened completely in a whole year, there are at least 5398 hours in whichair conditioning is not needed. In a whole year, if air conditioning is run to make heat or cool when theindoor natural temperature is less than 16C or higher than 29C, opening 30% of the glass curtain wallat the time that air conditioning is not run can save 21% of the energy that the case without opening in awhole year consumes. Increasing natural ventilation in summer can decrease the cooling loadeffectively. But in winter, increasing natural ventilation may increase the heating load. The opening ratioof the glass curtain wall should be adjusted according to indoor natural temperature, outdoortemperature, and the thermal comfort requirements of the occupants inside the building.