Study of the natural ventilation for thermal comfort in Block C classrooms - ICTE/UFTM

Abstract

The use of natural ventilation is an excellent passive air conditioning technique for indoor environments. In fact, it promotes comfortable thermal conditions for its occupants and reduces the use of electrical energy by mechanical conditioning systems. In this work, the effectiveness of natural ventilation in a set of laboratories and classrooms in Uberaba-MG- Brazil are focused. The thermal simulations of the environments were carried out by the Energy Plus program. The adaptive thermal comfort approach has been evaluated throughout the evaluation of the percentage of hours occupied in thermal comfort (POC). The main parameters considered in the simulations were the internal thermal loads of the environments and the possibility of closing doors and windows in 6 different configurations. The results have highlighted that the insertion of the internal thermal loads have a straight relationship with the POC. Taking into account the 21 environments analyzed, with the best configuration of natural ventilation, 14 showed the worst possible efficiency. In fact, the simulations have indicated the performance as level E label. On the other hand, the remaining environments showed POC levels lower than 51%. This has demonstrated that artificial air conditioning systems are required to provide environments thermal comfort for such situations in the remaining occupation.