multizone models

To reduce the carbon footprint of the built environment, a significant overhaul of the existing housing stock is essential. This entails not only ensuring proper insulation and airtightness in residences but also optimizing their ventilation systems. To precisely gauge the impact of an advanced ventilation system, the use of a pressure node model, such as multizone ventilation models like COMIS or TNO's AirMAPs model, is indispensable. However, when dealing with existing dwellings, numerous unknown variables, including interior door usage, can introduce substantial variations in results.

Coupling CFD and multizone models can avoid their respective drawbacks in predicting airflow andcontaminant concentrations distribution in buildings. Two kinds of boundary conditions are commonlyexchanged between them. The multizone model can give either pressure or mass flowrate boundaryconditions to CFD. This study analyzes in detail the impact of each of the boundary types on the CFDdomain, and compares them with a full CFD simulation without coupling.