A modelling method for conjugate heat transfer and fluid flow in building spaces

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has been used extensively for the prediction of air movement in buildings. In many cases buoyancy forces generated at heated surfaces that dissipate their energy by an interactive process of convection, radiation and conduction dominate air movement. In this work a new method for calculating conjugate fluxes at surfaces involving coupled short-wave and long-wave radiation, convection and conduction is developed as part of the CFD eld problem. The method is based on translating surface radiant exchanges into local volumetric fluxes. Results for a test room with a heated surface compared with data generated within the framework of IEA Annex 20 show that the method produces better results than might be expected from conventional models that use simplified radiant treatments.