Energy and Buildings 92 (2015) 313321

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Energy and Buildings

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/enbuild

Window operation and impacts on building energy consumption

Liping Wang a, , Steve Greenberg b
a
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Wyoming, 1000 E University Drive, Laramie, WY 82072, United States
b
Department of Building Technology and Urban Systems, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Road MS 90-3111, Berkeley, CA 94720,
United States

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Operable windows provide occupants with the ability to control local environments and satisfy human
Received 9 October 2014 expectation to access outdoor environments. Operation behaviors or strategies for operable windows
Received in revised form 24 January 2015 have substantial impacts on the indoor environment and building energy consumption. Facility managers
Accepted 27 January 2015
complain about operable windows left open in buildings with conventional HVAC systems. However,
Available online 7 February 2015
optimum control strategies of window operation reduce energy consumption for buildings via natural
ventilation or mixed-mode ventilation. This study focuses on the investigation of the impacts of window
Keywords:
operation on building performance for different types of ventilation systems including natural ventila-
Window operation
Natural ventilation
tion, mixed-mode ventilation, and conventional VAV systems in a medium-size reference ofce building.
Mixed-mode A building performance simulation toolEnergyPlusis used to simulate window operation for each
HVAC system system type. Various control strategies of window operation, simulated using the energy management
EnergyPlus system feature (EMS) in EnergyPlus, are evaluated based on the criteria of thermal comfort and energy
consumption. The investigation included the interaction between conventional VAV systems and window
operation as well as control strategies for natural ventilation and mixed-mode ventilation. The results
highlighted the impacts of window operation on energy use and comfort and identied HVAC energy
savings of 1747% with mixed-mode ventilation during summer for various climates.
2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Operable windows enable physical connection with the out-
door environment, provide occupants with the ability to control
the local environment by natural ventilation, and have the potential
to improve thermal comfort and reduce cooling loads, if properly
designed and operated. On one hand, as the benets of natural
ventilation, including reducing operation costs, improving indoor
air quality, and providing satisfactory thermal comfort, are well-
recognized, natural ventilation through operable windows has
become an attractive alternative to alleviate the issues associated
with air-conditioned buildings. Important studies have been car-
ried out to characterize and predict occupants window opening
behaviors based on key environmental parameters for naturally
ventilated buildings [19]. On the other hand, building facility man-
agers commonly complain that operable windows were left open in
buildings with a conventional HVAC system causing the central sys-
tem to run heavily. An occupant survey in mechanically conditioned
ofce buildings of a large enterprise in Cyprus, shows that 66% of
Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 307 766 3299.
E-mail address: lwang12@uwyo.edu (L. Wang).
occupants open their ofces windows very often and another 19%
do so sometimes, based on a total number of 303 responses [10].
Mixed-mode ventilation combines natural ventilation and con-
ventional mechanical heating and cooling systems to minimize
HVAC energy consumption and satisfy indoor thermal comfort
through proper control strategies of operable windows [11,12].
It is commonly classied into three categories: Concurrent,
Change-over and Zoned depending on its control strategies
[13]. Concurrent refers to the mixed-mode strategy that mechan-
ical systems and natural ventilation can operate in the same space
at the same time. Change-over refers to the mixed-mode strat-
egy that a building switches between natural ventilation and
mechanical systems. Zoned refers to the strategy that natural
ventilation and mechanical systems operate in different thermal
zones. Although natural ventilation is difcult to design and control,
we are facing more challenges for building designs with oper-
able windows for mixed-mode ventilation as operable windows
would require integration with mechanical systems, and they cre-
ate dynamic variability in the thermal environment. Spindler and
Norford [14] optimized control strategies for a mixed-mode build-
ing based on thermal predictions using a developed data-driven
thermal model for mixed-mode buildings. Karava et al. [15] inves-
tigated mixed-mode cooling strategies for an institutional building

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2015.01.060
0378-7788/ 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
314 L. Wang, S. Greenberg / Energy and Buildings 92 (2015) 313321

with motorized facade openings integrated with an atrium and

high levels of exposed thermal mass. Menassa [16] studied differ-
ent hybrid ventilation strategies for a laboratory building located in
Madison, Wisconsin and the best strategy can result in 20% savings
in mechanical cooling over the summer. Model-predictive control
was applied to optimize the control strategies for mixed-mode
buildings based on building energy simulation [1719].
Occupants thermal perception in mixed-mode buildings is still
under debate. ASHRAE Standard 55 [20] requires narrow thermal
set-points of air-conditioned buildings for mixed-mode buildings.
However, a recent study from Deuble and de Dear [21] on occu-
pant comfort sensation in a mixed-mode building found that the
ASHRAE Standard 55 adaptive comfort standard is more appropri-
ate to use as an operating guideline for mixed-mode buildings than
traditional thermal comfort used for mechanical systems. There-
fore, the adaptive comfort standard was applied in this study.
The objective of this study is to quantify the impacts of window Fig. 1. Layout of ve thermal zones per oor.
operation on building energy use and occupants thermal com-
fort. We investigated the interaction between conventional VAV
Three citiesChicago, Houston and San Franciscowere cho-
systems and window operation, and studied control strategies for
sen in the study to represent three different climates: humid
natural ventilation and mixed-mode ventilation using a medium-
continental, humid subtropical, and Mediterranean mild climates,
size ofce building energy simulation model.
respectively.
For each climate, four simulation scenarios with different
2. Methodology control strategies for VAV and window operation were devel-
oped based on the medium-size reference building model. They
EnergyPlus [22] is used as the simulation tool in the study are open windows (OW), natural ventilation (NV), changer-over
for modeling various scenarios for window operation. EnergyPlus, mixed-mode ventilation (Change-over), and concurrent mixed-
developed by the U.S. Department of Energy, is an open-source mode ventilation (Concurrent).
whole-building energy simulation program built upon sub-hourly In each scenario, the HVAC equipment and system sizing were
zone heat balance and integrated solutions of building loads, HVAC xed according to the baselines in order to exclude the variation
systems, and central plant equipment. In this study, a commer- of energy consumption and comfort performance due to different
cial building reference model [23] in compliance with ASHRAE HVAC equipment sizes. Thermal zone layout was kept the same,
90.1 [24] for a medium-size ofce building is used as the base- and three core zones were served by central HVAC systems for
line for the study to investigate the impacts of window operation the four scenarios to meet the same cooling and heating setpoints
on energy use and thermal environment. The total building area as the baselines for all the scenarios. Simulation model compari-
is 4982.19 m2 . There are three stories and 15 thermal zones in son among the four scenarios is summarized in Table 1. The four
the medium-size ofce reference model. There are four perime- scenarios and their control mechanisms are explained in detail as
ter zones and one core zone for each oor (Fig. 1). The window follows.
to wall ratio (WWR) is 0.48 for all four orientations. The lighting-
power density and electric plug-load density are 8.87 W/m2 and 2.1. Scenario 1open windows (OW)
8.07 W/m2 , respectively. A multi-zone variable air volume (VAV)
system, with a two-speed direct-expansion (DX) cooling coil and a No changes have been made to the HVAC systems, system oper-
gas burner, is used to provide the conditioned environment for each ation schedule, and room setpoints in OW. An airow network
oor. There are three multi-zone VAV systems in total. An electric model [25] was set up in EnergyPlus to simulate air movement
reheating coil is available for each thermal zone. in perimeter zones due to wind and surface leakage. As shown in

Table 1
Simulation model comparison among OW, NV, Change-over, Concurrent.

Open window (OW) Natural ventilation Change-over Concurrent

(NV) mixed-mode mixed-mode
ventilation ventilation

Cooling/heating setpoint for perimeter zones Same as core zones Adaptive thermal Adaptive thermal Adaptive thermal
served by mechanical comfort setpoint (80% comfort setpoint (80% comfort setpoint (80%
systems acceptability) acceptability) acceptability)
Use airow network model Yes Yes Yes Yes
Window opening Constant (second oor: Temperature-based Temperature-based Temperature-based
5% open, other oors: control control control
0%)
Ventilation setpoint NA TNVHeating TNVHeating TNVHeating
Upper limit of indooroutdoor air temperature NA 15 C 15 C 15 C
difference for ventilation
Venting availability Always available When OAT > (TNVHeating When OAT > (TNVHeating When OAT > (TNVHeating
3 C) 3 C) 3 C)
Is mechanical cooling available for perimeter Yes No Available once Yes
zones? windows in a thermal
zone are closed

OAT: outdoor air temperature ( C); TNVHeating : adaptive heating setpoint (80% acceptability) ( C).
 L. Wang, S. Greenberg / Energy and Buildings 92 (2015) 313321
Fig. 2. Modulation of window opening according to indoor and outdoor tempera-
ture difference (Tzone : zone air temperature; OAT: outdoor air temperature).
Table 1, the window opening fraction of each perimeter zone on
the middle oor was set as a constant5% throughout the simu-
lation period (June 1stAugust 31st) with high cooling demands.
Therefore, large amounts of unwanted cold/hot air may ow into
the building or conditioned air may ow out of the building through
the openings, which will cause extra energy consumption for the
HVAC systems.
2.2. Scenario 2natural ventilation (NV)
In NV, natural ventilation was applied to cool all the perimeter
zones. In contrast to the thermal comfort based on the heat bal-
ance model for mechanically conditioned buildings [26], adaptive
thermal comfort [27,28] considers occupants tendency to react to
environmental stimulations and restore comfort through behav-
ioral adaptation and is applied for naturally ventilated buildings.
Cooling and heating setpoints for naturally ventilated zones were
set by Eqs. (1) and (2) respectively based on mean monthly outdoor
air temperature according to 80% acceptability for naturally condi-
tioned spaces in ASHRAE Standard 55 [20]. The same setpoints are
used in the mixed-mode scenarios later discussed in this paper.
Mechanical HVAC systems served the core zones, and cooling and
heating setpoints remained the same as the baseline.
TNVCooling = Ta 0.31 + 21.3 (1)
TNVHeating = Ta 0.31 + 14.3 (2)
where TNVCooling upper 80% acceptability limit for natural ven-
tilation ( C), TNVHeating lower 80% acceptability limit for natural
ventilation ( C) and Ta mean outdoor monthly air temperature
( C).
Similar to OW, air movement in perimeter zones is simulated
using airow network model in EnergyPlus. However, the control
mechanisms for OW and NV are different as shown in Table 1. In
NV, a temperature-based control strategy is used to determine the
fraction of window opening. When windows in perimeter zones are
available to open, the fractions of window opening are modulated
based on a linear relationship with indooroutdoor temperature
difference if zone air temperature is greater than outdoor air tem-
perature and is also greater than ventilation setpoint. In this study,
the window opening fraction is based on the indooroutdoor tem-
perature difference and is illustrated in Fig. 2. Windows will be fully
closed when the indooroutdoor temperature difference is greater
than or equal to 15 C and windows will be fully open for venti-
lation when the indoor and outdoor air temperatures are equal.
The ventilation setpoint was set to be the adaptive heating setpoint
(TNVHeating ) for perimeter zones, determined by Eq. (2). Windows in
315
Fig. 3. Illustration of operation range of natural ventilation when outdoor air
temperature equals to mean monthly outdoor air temperature based on ASHRAE
Standard 55 adaptive thermal comfort chart (Tzone : zone air temperature; OAT:
outdoor air temperature; TNVHeating : adaptive heating setpoint (80% acceptability)).
perimeter zones are available to open (venting availability) when
outdoor air temperature is greater than the temperature which is
3 C below the adaptive heating setpoint (TNVHeating 3 C) in order
to avoid overcooling thermal zones when outdoor air temperature
is too low. An illustration of the natural ventilation (NV) opera-
tion range is shown in Fig. 3. The shaded area indicates the NV
operation range when outdoor air temperature (OAT) is equal to
the monthly mean outdoor air temperature. The three boundary
lines (Tzone = OAT; Tzone = TNVHeating ; OAT = (TNVHeating 3 C)) dene
its operation range. Since most of the time, outdoor air tempera-
ture is not equal to the monthly mean outdoor air temperature, the
NV operation range changes dynamically with outdoor air temper-
ature.
Since natural ventilation is the only cooling source for perimeter
zones, conditioned air from the VAV terminal unit of this particu-
lar zone is no longer available whenever zone air temperature is
greater than adaptive heating setpoint and windows are available
to operate.
2.3. Scenario 3Change-over mixed-mode ventilation
(Change-over)
In Chang-over, whenever a window in a perimeter zone is open,
the heating and cooling air supplied from a mechanical system to
this zone will be turned off. The control type of this mixed-mode
ventilation, serving perimeter zones, is classied as Change-over.
The interlock between operable windows and a mechanical sys-
tem can be as basic as a switch that automatically turns off local
HVAC components when windows are open. Cooling and heating
setpoints for perimeter zones in this scenario are the same as those
in the scenario for natural ventilation. Mechanical systems serve
cooling and heating for core zones and their setpoints remain the
same as baseline.
Window operation in the scenario adopts temperature-based
control strategies as described in the scenario for natural venti-
lation. Whenever window opening factor for a perimeter zone is
greater than 0%, conditioned air from the VAV terminal unit of
this particular zone is no longer available. As shown in Table 1,
the difference between NV and Change-over is in the availability
of mechanical cooling for perimeter zones. Mechanical cooling is
never available for perimeter zones in NV, while mechanical cool-
ing is available for perimeter zones in Change-over once windows
in a thermal zone are closed.
316 L. Wang, S. Greenberg / Energy and Buildings 92 (2015) 313321

Fig. 4. Temperature, energy demand proles, heating and cooling electric demand proles and window operation for OW in San Francisco over a typical week in June.

2.4. Scenario 4concurrent mixed-mode ventilation (Concurrent)
The major difference between Change-over and Concurrent
is in operation control. Mixed-mode ventilation still serves the
perimeter zones in Concurrent. Natural ventilation is taken as the
priority to provide cooling for perimeter zones, and mechanical
systems provide supplementary cooling when natural ventilation
alone is not enough to meet cooling setpoints. The control type of
this mixed-mode ventilation is classied as Concurrent. If natu-
ral ventilation can meet cooling loads for a thermal zone, the VAV
damper at zone level will be closed. Otherwise, conditioned air from
the VAV terminal unit is available to provide supplementary cool-
ing in order to meet thermal comfort. When window opening factor
for a perimeter zone is greater than 0% and natural ventilation can
keep zone air temperature within setpoints, conditioned air from
the VAV terminal unit of this particular zone is turned off.
The energy management system (EMS) in EnergyPlus is used to
implement different control strategies for operable windows in this
study. EMS is an advanced feature of EnergyPlus and designed for
users to develop customized high-level, supervisory control routi-
nes to override specied aspects of EnergyPlus modeling in the EMS
program.
3. Result discussion
3.1. Result discussion on each scenario for San Francisco
3.1.1. Open windows (OW)
Fig. 4 illustrates hourly proles for temperature, HVAC energy
demand, electric demands for heating and cooling, and window
position for the medium-size ofce building in San Francisco over a
 L. Wang, S. Greenberg / Energy and Buildings 92 (2015) 313321 317

Fig. 5. Temperature, energy demand proles, heating and cooling electric demand proles and window position for NV in San Francisco over a typical week in June.

typical week in June. Fig. 4a shows outdoor air temperature, cooling
setpoint, heating setpoint, and zone air temperature for a thermal
zone on the middle oor. Fig. 4b shows a comparison on building
HVAC electric demand between OW and baseline. Fig. 4c shows the
heating electric demand. Fig. 4d shows the cooling electric demand
and the 5% constant window position for a thermal zone on the
mid-oor.
The heating and cooling setpoints of thermal zones in OW are
the same as baseline. Mechanical cooling setpoint is 24 C during
occupied hours and setback by 2.7 C during unoccupied hours.
Although operable windows on the middle oor were 5% open
through the year, zone air temperature of perimeter zones, served
by existing HVAC systems, stays within setpoints. It may not be the
case if opening fraction is further increased or the building is located
in different climates. Energy penalty can be observed in Fig. 4b in
early morning and at night due to air movement through open win-
dows in San Francisco. It is also shown in Fig. 4c that wasted energy
due to open windows goes mostly for heating for San Francisco
climate.
3.1.2. Natural ventilation (NV)
Fig. 5 shows hourly proles for temperature, HVAC energy
demands, electric demands for heating and cooling and window
position of the natural ventilation scenario. Heating and cooling
setpoints for NV were based on the adaptive thermal comfort
in ASHRAE Standard 55 [20]. Since San Francisco is characteristic
of cool-summer Mediterranean climate, natural ventilation is an
effective cooling strategy for summer. However, when outdoor air
temperature is above cooling setpoint as shown in Fig. 5a, purely
natural ventilation cannot meet the thermal comfort requirement.
Fig. 5b shows that hourly HVAC electric demands have been largely
reduced for most of the time due to substantially reduced cooling
demands (as shown in Fig. 5b). Fig. 5c shows that heating electric
demands go down substantially for most of the time due to the fact
318 L. Wang, S. Greenberg / Energy and Buildings 92 (2015) 313321
Fig. 6. Temperature, window operation and energy demand proles for Change-over and Concurrent in San Francisco over a typical week in June.
that electric reheating coils in VAV boxes were turned off when
thermal zones are in cooling mode for NV. It is also interesting
to see that reheating demands go up for a few hours because too
much cold air owed into thermal zones through window open-
ings. This indicates the opportunity of optimizing control algorithm
for natural ventilation to reduce overcooling and therefore avoid
unnecessary heating demands.
3.1.3. Mixed mode ventilation (Change-over and Concurrent)
Fig. 6 shows hourly proles on temperature, window position,
and energy demands for Change-over and Concurrent. Building
HVAC electricity demands for mixed mode ventilation are largely
reduced due to the reduced cooling loads. In Change-over, when
the outdoor condition is not favorable, mechanical cooling will
serve perimeter zones. Therefore, the number of hours exceed-
ing cooling setpoint in Change-over is less than that for NV. In
Concurrent, when purely natural ventilation is not sufcient for
cooling, mechanical cooling will also serve perimeter zones as a
supplementary. The HVAC electricity demands of Concurrent are
higher than those of Change-over and there are fewer hours of
unmet cooling loads for Concurrent than for Change-over.
3.2. Temperature comparison among various scenarios for a
typical summer day
Hourly zone air temperature is analyzed in detail to bet-
ter understand the impacts of window operation on building
performance. Fig. 7 illustrates the hourly outdoor air tempera-
ture, zone air temperature for a perimeter zone on the middle
oor and cooling setpoints for baseline and the other four sce-
narios on a typical summer day, San Francisco. The cooling
setpoint for naturally ventilated spaces is determined by mean
monthly outdoor air temperature based on ASHRAE Standard 55
[20]. For the natural ventilation (NV) scenario, the cooling set-
point can be met during morning and evening for the summer
day. With the increase of outdoor air temperature in the after-
noon, natural ventilation cannot meet cooling loads and maintain
the cooling setpoint under the existing building condition. ZAT
Change-over and ZAT Concurrent refer to zone air tempera-
tures for change-over mixed-mode ventilation (Change-over) and
concurrent mixed mode ventilation (Concurrent), respectively.
For Change-over, since either natural ventilation or mechani-
cal cooling can be applied to thermal zones, it can be seen that
the adaptive cooling setpoint cannot be met from 12:00 pm to
2:00 pm by purely natural ventilation for San Francisco climate.
For Concurrent, since both natural ventilation and mechanical
cooling can be applied concurrently to perimeter zones, mechan-
ical cooling will serve perimeter zones to meet adaptive cooling
setpoint whenever natural ventilation alone is not sufcient. No
periods, exceeding adaptive cooling setpoint, were observed on
the summer day for Concurrent. Although the temperature and
cooling setpoint in Fig. 7 were plotted for San Francisco climate,
we observed similar features of simulated scenarios for other
climates.
 L. Wang, S. Greenberg / Energy and Buildings 92 (2015) 313321
Fig. 7. Comparisons of hourly zone air temperature among various scenarios on a typical summer day, San Francisco (ZAT: zone air temperature, OAT: outdoor air temperature).
Fig. 8. Comparisons of overall HVAC energy savings and number of unmet hours for each scenario among different cities (comparison period: June 1August 31).
3.3. Comparison among various climates during summer
The four scenarios of window operation were simulated for
the three cities: San Francisco, Houston, and Chicago through the
selected period (June 1stAugust 31st). The comparison of HVAC
energy savings relative to baseline and number of hours exceeding
cooling setpoint is shown in Fig. 8. The break-down of the contribu-
tion to energy savings from each HVAC end-use including heating,
cooling and fan is shown in Fig. 9. The positive percentages indi-
cate energy savings and the negative percentages indicate energy
penalties.
Energy penalties of 3.515.2% were predicted for OW sce-
nario due to the 5% window opening on the middle oor. For
San Francisco, the energy penalty of OW scenario is attributed to
increased heating energy use. In fact, fan and cooling energy was
reduced for the San Francisco climate due to the reason that open
windows provide natural ventilation for cooling in mild climate.
For the Houston climate, 6% energy penalty of OW is attributed to
the increased cooling energy use. It is also noticed that the existing
HVAC equipment cannot meet cooling demand and the number of
unmet hours for thermal comfort during summer is 344. For the
Chicago climate, 3.5% energy penalty of OW is attributed to both
increased heating and cooling energy use.
HVAC energy savings of 31.759.1% were predicted for NV
scenario during summer based on current design and the control
algorithm of natural ventilation. San Francisco climate shows the
largest energy saving potential with the least number of unmet
319
hours (181 h) for thermal comfort among the three cities due to
its mild climate. For hot-humid climate like Houston, the 31.7%
HVAC energy saving from natural ventilation, where 29% energy
saving is from cooling, 3.5% energy saving is from fan, and 0.8%
energy penalty is from heating, sacrices thermal comfort to a large
extent and the predicted number of hours exceeding cooling set-
point is 555 during the simulation period (June 1stAugust 31st).
A higher percentage of energy penalty from heating (5.6%) was
observed with natural ventilation for the Chicago climate. This can
be attributed to overcooling from natural ventilation. The overall
HVAC energy saving from natural ventilation for Chicago is 32.3%
with 298 unmet hours in total during the simulation period.
In mixed-mode ventilation scenarios (Change-over and Con-
current), mechanical cooling serves perimeter zones when natural
ventilation is not in favor or cannot meet cooling loads. Therefore,
Change-over and Concurrent achieve less HVAC energy savings
than NV. HVAC energy savings of 18.346.8% were predicted for
Change-over with a substantially reduced number of unmet hours
for thermal comfort and HVAC energy savings of 17.046.5% were
predicted for Concurrent with satised indoor thermal comfort for
nearly all the time. HVAC energy savings of 46.5% were obtained for
the Concurrent mixed-mode scenario in San Francisco. Although
climates such as Chicago and Houston are not appropriate to use
purely natural ventilation for cooling, the Concurrent scenario can
maintain indoor thermal comfort and help reduce overall HVAC
energy consumption during the simulation period (June 1stAugust
31st). The energy savings are attributed to savings from cooling and
320 L. Wang, S. Greenberg / Energy and Buildings 92 (2015) 313321
Fig. 9. Savings of HVAC end-use energy consumption relative to baseline.
fan energy and energy penalties from increased heating energy
were observed with the Concurrent scenario for Houston and
Chicago. The overall HVAC energy saving percentages are 17% and
23.3% with very few unmet hours for thermal comfort for Houston
and Chicago, respectively.
4. Conclusion
Without changing the existing layout of medium-size ofce
building, window operation strategies play an important role to
ensure energy efciency and thermal comfort. While keeping the
core zones served by mechanical HVAC systems, mixed-mode ven-
tilation for perimeter zones can provide substantial HVAC energy
savings, even for a hot-humid climate like Houston.
Two control strategies for mixed-mode ventilation are com-
pared in this study. Although the energy saving by Change-over
(18.346.8% of HVAC site energy) is slightly higher than that by
Concurrent (17.046.5% of HVAC site energy), there is a risk that
the cooling setpoint is not met when natural ventilation alone is
not sufcient for Change-over. When a window is left open all
times in a perimeter zone, it costs 3.515.2% extra HVAC site energy.
Although natural ventilation provides the most savings among all
the scenarios (31.759.1% HVAC site energy), it also brings a sub-
stantial number of unmet hours based on existing building design
and layout in the study for Chicago and Houston climates. Energy
savings reported here are for the selected simulation period from
June 1st to August 31st. Other times of a year, when thermal zones
are in cooling mode, mixed mode ventilation will also be benecial
to reduce overall HVAC energy consumption.
The following opportunities were identied for further research
and development:
Recongure facade design and internal layout to reach maximum
utilization of natural ventilation and minimize the number of
unmet hours. The percentage of time in a year when natural ven-
tilation is feasible is pre-determined by climate conditions. The
realization of natural ventilation for thermal comfort and energy
efciency are based on design or retrots of facade elements and
internal layouts for commercial buildings.
Optimize the control strategies for natural ventilation and mixed-
mode ventilation. (1) Window operation is triggered by setpoints
and the opening fraction is proportional to temperature differ-
ence between zone temperature and outdoor air temperature.
The triggering points and proportional control can be optimized
to avoid overcooling under natural ventilation and mixed-mode
ventilation. (2) The current control strategy for airow network
in EnergyPlus is an open-loop control. Feedback control can be
added to re-adjust the window position.
Use coupled CFD and airow network model approach to improve
the accuracy of natural ventilation prediction. The limitation of
airow network models for natural ventilation study is that they
assume that air inside each thermal zone is well-mixed. How-
ever, indoor air in naturally ventilated spaces, especially for large
spaces, is normally non-uniformly distributed. Coupling CFD and
an airow network model can provide detailed indoor thermal
environment and improve model prediction.
Implement control strategies of operable windows in existing
buildings and examine the impacts of various types of controls
and degrees of sophistication and difculties in terms of imple-
mentation in existing building systems. In this study, we assumed
that the window opening is as described in the opening controls
of the model. The window operation would be difcult to imple-
ment in real buildings without an automatic control system for
window openings.
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