Climatic analysis of ventilation and thermal performance of a dome building with roof vent

Abstract

The paper presents the climatic analysis of a naturally ventilated geodesic-type dome building situated in a hot climate. A comprehensive review of the literature was conducted to provide an overview of previous related research on dome-type roofs buildings. The two-floor geodesic dome building assessed in this study was based on a 3v Icosahedron type and had a roof vent for natural ventilation. The airflow and temperature distributions inside the building were simulated using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modelling with the standard k-epsilon turbulence model. The computational modelling was verified using sensitivity analysis and flux balance analysis. Validation was carried out by using a similar dome-shaped building model from the literature. The atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) flow was simulated in the computational domain for a more realistic predictions of wind conditions. The thermal comfort level was assessed using the Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) method. The results showed that integration of the roof vents was advantageous and could reduce the indoor temperature and also introduce fresh air particularly during winter. The results also revealed that natural ventilation using roof vents could not satisfy the thermal requirements during summer periods and potential cooling solutions that could be integrated into the system are discussed.