Ventilation and Airflow in Buildings Research Group

Head of research group
Chen Zhang

The reserach group is associated with the Division of Architectural Engineering.

This research area focuses on air flow processes in buildings and building services. Ventilation and air flow in buildings are significant elements in the determination of energy and mass flow in a building and form the basis for determining global thermal comfort and air quality.

The description of local comfort and air quality is also closely related to a description of the air flow parameters involved. The subject covers many areas such as free and forced convection, boundary layer flow, jet flows of different nature, stratified flow and plumes above heat sources. The research also involves other areas, e.g. thermal conductivity, thermal radiation and mass diffusion, and has interfaces to medicine and physiology in connection with studies of air distribution and mass transport around persons.

Also, the air flow processes in building components and services are addressed. Therefore, ventilation and air flow processes in buildings form the basis for determination of energy consumption, indoor climate and work environment, but are also applied to risk assessment in connection with fire, dispersion of smoke, contamination, transport of bacteria and dispersion of gases in disasters.