NUMERICAL ANALYSIS OF THERMAL COMFORT PARAMETERS IN AN OFFICE - ZONAL AND CFD MODEL COMPARISON

Zonal and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modelling approaches for simulation of airfows and evaluation of thermal comfort parameters inside an enclosure have been compared in the paper on the case of an office. The steady-state 3D CFD model has been built using a commercial CFD code Fluent that is based on the finite volume method. Different turbulence models integrated in Fluent have been tested. The results obtained by the CFD model have been compared to the zonal model and experimental results, both obtained at Research and Development Centre of the CIAT factory. A correct compatibility, between the results has been found.