CFD Simulation of a Naturally Ventilated Dairy Building

Advective heat and mass transfer, due to pressure differences created by wind or buoyancy, dominates the exchange processes in naturally ventilated structures. The air exchange rate (AER) quantifies this transfer. The airflow patterns including air velocities and turbulences govern the indoor environmental parameters such as temperature, gases and humidity. These patterns form the essential link between the outdoor environment and the buildings microclimate; thus, an understanding of the principles of air motion is necessary in order to provide the correct quantities of air and the proper distribution patterns to meet the needs of the application. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) have been applied in very limited studies for naturally ventilated animal houses considering wind directions and surrounding buildings. This paper presents isothermal CFD simulations with a naturally ventilated dairy (NVD) barn model to assess the influence of wind direction and surroundings on the AER and indoor and outdoor airflow distributions.