Improving Indoor Air Quality with Natural Ventilation Methods: A Simulation Study

Abstract

In modern life, strategies developed in line with the increasing energy demand cause many environmental problems on a global scale. One of the most important of these problems is inadequate indoor air quality. The most critical parameters affecting indoor air quality during the design phase are selecting wrong and unhealthy building products, insufficient window sizes, and unplanned natural ventilation. This study investigates whether indoor air quality can be improved only by effective natural ventilation methods, without compromising thermal comfort, through small changes that can be applied to buildings. For this purpose, simulation studies were carried out to reveal whether indoor air quality could be improved without compromising thermal comfort in a library building. As a result, when evaluating the improvement recommendations, the thermal comfort range for the cross-ventilation and chimney effect ventilation recommendations is 'comfortable' in winter and 'comfortable-partially comfortable' in summer. For the ventilation recommendations with roof wings, skylights and wind towers, the thermal comfort range for summer and winter remained in the "comfortable" range due to the high natural ventilation performance.

Keywords

• Buildings with atriums
• Improvement proposals
• Indoor air quality
• Natural ventilation
• Thermal comfort
• Simulation software