A n a l y s i s o f t h e T r a d i t i o n a l P a s s i v e S y s t e m s
253
ANALYSIS OF THE TRADITIONAL PASSIVE SYSTEMS
PERFORMANCE THROUGH THE APPLICATION OF CFD
SOFTWARE
Antonio De Vecchi
1
, Simona Colajanni
2
, Elsa Sanfilippo
3
, Francesco Di Gesù
4
, Andrea Graceffa
5
, Giulia
Guglielmo
6
, Leonardo Patti
7
, Quirino Mario Picone
8.
1
Professor, Dipartimento di Architettura, Università di Palermo, Palermo, Italy
2
Professor, Dipartimento di Architettura, Università di Palermo, Palermo, Italy
3
Professor, Dipartimento di Architettura, Università di Palermo, Palermo, Italy
4
Doctor engineering, External expert, Palermo, Italy
5
Doctor engineering, External expert, Palermo, Italy
6
Student, Università di Palermo, Palermo, Italy
7
Student, Università di Palermo, Palermo, Italy
8
Student, Università di Palermo, Palermo, Italy
Abstract
The need to reduce energy consumption is pushing the building design research to the
evaluation of passive conditioning systems, since urban buildings are one of the major
energy dissipater resulting in emission of CO
2
.
This approach is not modern, but it is historically rooted in the architectural culture of the
Mediterranean area and in the Middle East. The passive systems have ancient origins:
they were developed to mitigate the summer heat and the winter cold. To understand the
reasons that led to the development of passive systems, it should be remembered that
about One-Fifth of the emerged planet surface and One-Third of the world's population
live in conditions of warm-dry or hot-humid. In addition, most continental areas, even
above high values of latitude (50°), are characterized by climatic conditions with summer
temperatures over the limit levels of comfort.
Nowadays the scientific knowledge and the modern technologies allow to understand the
working of passive systems in order to apply them on buildings to improve indoor
comfort.
This can be obtained through a new approach that involves the elaboration of design
strategies based on the development of techniques and on computational and control
tools.
This work will show the results of a research that aims to verify the working of natural
passive cooling systems employed in existing ancient buildings throughout CFD
(Computational Fluid Dynamic) software application.
Particularly we will define, through computational tools, models and study cases to
compare and to set proposals able to actualize the original passive systems conceived
and developed in an empirical way.
Keywords:
passive systems, indoor comfort, CFD simulation, sustainable development.
The Passive Systems in the Mediterranean area
In the past, passive systems were the only expedient to mitigate the adverse effects of
climate and improve indoor comfort. These ancient-origin passive systems have been
developed in areas where whole towns were built according to these principles.
Empirically designed and developed, they have become popular in hot countries to
mitigate the effect through natural expedients.
These systems utilize various principles such as natural ventilation, evaporative cooling,
control of solar radiation, the building thermal mass and the heat exchange with the
ground.
