Natural Ventilation in a Model Room

Natural ventilation of a model room with water as the fluid medium is studied. It is insulated by air gaps on the four sides and at the top. A constant heat flux has been maintained on the bottom surface of the room. This room is surrounded by a large exterior tank containing water. There are three openings each on two opposing sides of the model room. For any experiment, only one opening on each side is kept open. Fluid enters or leaves these openings and the flow is driven entirely by buoyancy forces. Shadowgraph technique is used for visualization. The buoyancy causes flow to enter through the bottom opening and leaves through the top opening. At the openings, buoyant jets are observed and which have higher or lower relative density compared with that of its environment. The buoyant jet at the inlet interacts with the plumes on the heated bottom plate. From these visualizations, it appears that free convection at bottom plate will be affected by the buoyant jets at the openings and the degree to which it is affected depends on the position and size of openings and distance between inlet and outlet. The flow rate due to the natural ventilation depends on the bottom surface heat flux and the height difference between the openings. The temperatures of the floor, the interior and the exterior are calculated using a simple mathematical model. The values of temperatures obtained in the experiments are reasonably well predicted by the mathematical model.