determining room temperature gradients

[normwheatley]

Hi,

Is there any simple way to determine the (vertical) temperature gradient in a room?

It seems to me that the only way to do it is to run Microflo and look at a filled temp contour at the floor and ceiling?

This is a fairly common requirement for building design but I camn't find any hints in the documentation about how to do this.

any ideas?

thanks
Norm

[PCully]

HI,

Found this on a recent support response issued by one of our consultants, might give you some ideas:

To show a temperature gradient in a room you can do one of two things:

Perform a CFD analysis. MicroFlo would be capable of this.

Split the room up into a number of horizontal zones which are connected to each other via holes. When you run a dynamic simulation you can check the temperature in each of the zones and see how it varies depending on the height of the zone.

Phil

[liamh]

Use Microflo, it is designed for just that kind of thing.

Macroflo can be used to model stack flow by breaking up a tall zone into a number of zones along the direction of gravity but its calculation method isn't really applicable for recirculating flows that result in highly stratified temperature fields. That is why there is an IES FAQ on how to model stratification by placing more of the thermal loads higher up in the tall space to 'fudge' stratification.