Abstract
This study was undertaken to investigate the effectiveness of an integrated natural ventilation design for a NetZero energy house in maintaining occupants comfortable solely by passive means. The house was instrumented and monitored during the warmest months of the year. A dynamic thermal model and a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model were developed to supplement the measurements and help to understand the factors that contribute to the effectiveness of the design. A methodology was developed to validate the models with data and cross-validate them. Adaptive thermal comfort is used as the metric to determine if comfort has been achieved. The study concludes that the house as a whole meets the comfort target. Two technologies were compared through simulations to evaluate their effect on enhancing wind-induced natural ventilation. The technologies did not improve cooling performance in a significant manner. Further work is needed to improve the models through technologies testing in the laboratory and model the uncertainty of the boundary forces to increase confidence in the results.,Peer reviewed,Peer reviewed article,Published online: 06 Sep 2016.,Adaptive thermal comfort,Natural ventilation,Active house,NetZero energy house