Emerging Technologies: Natural and Hybrid Ventilation
Most commercial buildings use mechanical systems to ventilate and cool commercial buildings. In contrast, a building with natural ventilation (NV) relies on natural forces, primarily wind and thermal buoyancy, to move air to ventilate and cool buildings. The two basic approaches to NV are cross and stack ventilation.1,2 In both cases, the building designs allow for sufficient volume of outdoor air (OA)to flow through building spaces. NV buildings typically have more complex faade and window systems, such as operable (including automated) windows, dedicated air intakes, and roof vents to effectively control building airflows.Citation: ASHRAE Journal, vol. 48, no. 6, June 2006