NUMERICAL PREDICTION FOR INDOOR AIR MOVEMENT.

In the United States, room convection modeling is considered important for predicting thermal comfort, indoor air quality and smoke migration, ASHRAE Task Group on Indoor Environmental Calculation is currently evaluating several proposals to develop computer programs for predicting two- and three-dimensional room convection, Japanese experience on room air convection simulation developed in conjunction with clean room air flow analysis should be very valuable for ASHRAE task group efforts. The numerical calculation approach using the turbulence model with the finite difference technique is considered the most promising and recommendable method as far as practical applications are concerned, based on a number of experimental validations. The turbulence models which have been tested by Japanese researchers in building physics are called the k- epsilon model and the large eddy simulation (LES) method.