Simulating impact of ceiling fan on thermal comfort

[Rohini]

Hi,
I'm a student simulating the impact of several low tech solutions on thermal comfort in a high rise apartment in a hot humid climate. I'm in desperate need of some advice.

1. I'm trying to simulate the impact of ceiling fans (which increase internal air speed) on thermal comfort in a room in addition to natural ventilation. How do I go about this?

2. If macroflow does not integrate the impact of surrounding buildings on airflow, and microflow does not give values which can be used to judge thermal comfort. How do I simulate the impact of surrounding buildings on airflow into an opening and consequently thermal comfort within a room?
(eg. I'm studying the impact of depth of balconies on ventilation air flow rates into the bdg)

Any advice/pointers on how I could do this would be appreciated! Thanks!

rgds,
Rohini

[KasperS]

Hey

I think you are using the wrong program if thats what you want to simlulate. I would rather use a CFD or FEM program, because they can determine what is actually happening around the window. I can recommend Comsol if your university already have the program, else try contact them to get a student license through the period you need it, they helped me a lot with my bachelor thesis. IES can't do that.

From Kasper

[KasperS]

After thinking about it some more, the CFD part of IES might be able to provide what you need, but i havent used it a lot so far.

[Rohini]

Hi..
Thanks You're right, Microflow does have an internal and external CFD analysis. But I do not know how to integrate the outputs of the Microflow analysis with the Macroflow to get a more realistic thermal comfort report.

[KasperS]

If you can calculate how much air is actually coming through the window, wouldnt you be able to convert that to an airchange then, and use it that way? I dont think you can convert it directly to MacroFlo.