Improving prediction of dynamic zonal modelling for atrium thermal environment

The atrium has become a central feature of modern buildings. Predicting the atrium thermal performance, however, still faces lots of challenges. Computational Fluid Dynamics can provide detailed simulation results, but it is not practically applicable to large complex spaces. The conventional zonal models require less computational effort but have a lower accuracy. Thus, this paper aims at improving the dynamic zonal prediction for the case of the atrium thermal environment. Firstly, an airflow network composed of air volumes and flow paths is constructed in the space. Then, a simplified momentum equation is implemented to calculate kinetic energy conservation, transformation and dispassion. By comparing the simulated and measured air temperatures of a five-storey atrium, it is shown the zonal method can obtain a quick and reasonable prediction of atrium thermal performance.