Paper Conference

Proceedings of SimBuild Conference 2010: 4th conference of IBPSA-USA

     

An Introduction to the CFD Capabilities in CONTAM 3.0

Liangzhu Leon Wang, W. Stuart Dols, Qingyan Chen
Department of Building, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Concordia University, Canada
Indoor Air Quality and Ventilation Group, Building and Fire Research Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD, USA
Mechanical Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA

Abstract: CONTAM is a multizone airflow network computer program for building ventilation and indoor air quality analysis. The program was recently enhanced to incorporate CFD capabilities for both external and internal environmental analysis. This paper introduces the CFD features implemented within the most recent version, CONTAM 3.0. The external CFD link predicts wind pressure coefficients and contaminant concentrations for airflow paths at the building surface. A converter computer program translates the wind pressure coefficients and contaminant concentrations to the CONTAM data format. The ability to embed single CFD zone within a CONTAM network model has also been implemented. This enables the detailed modeling of a zone, in which the well-mixed multizone assumption is too broad but uses the multizone approach for the rest of a building. This paper used a generic residential house model to demonstrate how the new CFD features enrich the existing CONTAM capabilities for indoor air quality analysis.
Pages: 490 - 496
Paper:
simbuild2010_TS10A-01-Wang