Article Title
CFD modelling and thermal performance analysis of a wooden ventilated roof structure
Keywords
natural ventilation, ventilated roofs, CFD simulations
Abstract
Thermal comfort and energy saving are objectives of key significance that building design must meet. Since a low energy building can be obtained as a result of the good realization of all its components, roofs call for particular attention as they represent a large part of a building’s total surface area. In this paper the benefit of using ventilated roofs for reducing summer cooling load is investigated. The investigation has been conducted comparing a ventilated roof assembly with different channel heights (3 cm, 5 cm, and 10 cm) to the same non ventilated structure, assuming buoyancy-driven airflow. Direct comparison between the open and the closed roof structures as a function of different cavity heights and outside environmental conditions is presented. To provide fundamental information about the thermal performance of these building envelope components, the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model has been used to develop correlations for the characterization of the airflow and heat transfer phenomena in the ventilation cavity which have been implemented in a whole year energy simulation software. The present analysis shows a conflicting discrepancy among the indexes of performance describing the actual energy saving potential of a ventilated roof.
Publisher
Tsinghua University Press
Recommended Citation
Giacomo Villi, Wilmer Pasut, Michele De Carli. CFD modelling and thermal performance analysis of a wooden ventilated roof structure. Build Simul, 2009, 2(3): 215–228.