Thermal Comfort Research in Naturally Ventilated High-Rise Residential Building

Abstract

Natural ventilation is a traditional but effective way in buildings to adjust the indoor environment. It has also been proved to be effective in today’s design, if applied appropriately. At the same time, there is a growing trend that higher and higher buildings are constructed in the crowded city area. Air velocity, temperature and other factors have already been found to change with height, and the difference in thermal comfort can also affect the architectural design. Therefore, we do need to know the thermal comfort distribution in high rise buildings. However, research about how to properly realize natural ventilation in a high rise residential building properly is still in early stage. In most cases, designers just choose completely mechanical system to deal with all the climate problems. This may be acceptable for commercial buildings, but in residential buildings natural systems are preferred by most people. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the thermal comfort distribution in a naturally ventilated high rise residential building, and find out if the suitable solutions can be implemented to improve it. To study this question, a case study was carried out in a high rise student dormitory in Delft, Netherlands in July 2015. Field study (questionnaires and measurement) and CFD simulation were applied simultaneously in the research process to validate each other. The temperature, air velocity, humidity and subjective behaviours were investigated. The results show how the thermal comfort level is distributed in both building scale and room scale. Based on the analysis about the problems found in the survey, possible refurbishment method is also suggested.