Abstract:

Real-time or faster-than-real-time flow simulation is crucial for studying airflow and heat transfer in buildings, such as building design, building emergency management and building energy performance evaluation. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) with PISO or SIMPLE algorithm is accurate but requires great computational resources. Fast Fluid Dynamics (FFD) can reduce the computational effort but generally lack prediction accuracy due to simplification. This study developed a fast computational method based on FFD in combination with the PISO algorithm. Boussinesq approximation is adopted for simulating buoyancy effect. The proposed solver is tested in a two-dimensional case and a three-dimensional case with experimental data. The predicted results have good agreement with the experimental results and at the same time, the proposed method can reduce computational cost greatly compared to CFD.