Natural Ventilation with Heat Recovery_A Biomimetic Concept.pdf (1.5 MB)
Natural ventilation with heat recovery: a biomimetic concept
journal contribution
posted on 2015-06-25, 11:03 authored by Zulfikar Adamu, Andrew PriceIn temperate countries, heat recovery is often desirable through mechanical ventilation with heat recovery (MVHR). Drawbacks of MVHR include use of electric power and complex ducting, while alternative passive heat recovery systems in the form of roof or chimney-based solutions are limited to low rise buildings. This paper describes a biomimetic concept for natural ventilation with heat recovery (NVHR). The NVHR system mimics the process of water/mineral extraction from urine in the Loop of Henle (part of human kidney). Simulations on a facade-integrated Chamber successfully imitated the geometry and behaviour of the Loop of Henle (LoH). Using a space measuring 12 m2 in area and assuming two heat densities of 18.75 W/m2 (single occupancy) or 30 W/m2 (double occupancy), the maximum indoor temperatures achievable are up to 19.3 °C and 22.3 °C respectively. These come with mean relative ventilation rates of 0.92 air changes per hour (ACH) or 10.7 L·s−1 and 0.92 ACH (11.55 L·s−1), respectively, for the month of January. With active heating and single occupant, the LoH Chamber consumes between 65.7% and 72.1% of the annual heating energy required by a similar naturally ventilated space without heat recovery. The LoH Chamber could operate as stand-alone indoor cabinet, benefitting refurbishment of buildings and evading constraints of complicated ducting, external aesthetic or building age.
History
School
- Architecture, Building and Civil Engineering
Published in
BuildingsVolume
5Pages
405 - 423 (18)Citation
ADAMU, Z.A. and PRICE, A.D.F., 2015. Natural ventilation with heat recovery: a biomimetic concept. Buildings, 5 (2), pp. 405 - 423.Publisher
MDPIVersion
- VoR (Version of Record)
Publisher statement
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/Publication date
2015Notes
This is an Open Access article published by MDPI and distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution Licence https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.ISSN
2075-5309Publisher version
Language
- en