Atrium cooling performance in a low energy office building in the Tropics, a field study

Publication date: December 2015
Source:Building and Environment, Volume 94, Part 1
Author(s): Leila Moosavi, Norhayati Mahyuddin, Norafida Ghafar
Despite the many advantages, naturally ventilated atria in tropical office buildings are at great risk of thermal discomfort due to the effect of the external conditions in respect of solar and heat penetration. This study reports the efficiency of different passive and hybrid cooling strategies – thermal stack flue, cross ventilation and water wall – to minimize the possible overheating inside an atrium lobby of a low energy office building in Putrajaya, Malaysia, where the weather is often warm and humid. Monitoring was carried out at ten different points of the atrium lobby at the ground floor for 14 days in November of 2013. The recorded data represent the internal thermal conditions of the atrium lobby in seven different cases by changing the opening composition, stack flue outlets, atrium lobby inlets, and water wall operating time. The study results highlight the importance of cross ventilation in improving the atrium indoor thermal conditions and enhancing the performance of other strategies. The atrium has the highest performance with the implementation of full cross ventilation via all inlet openings at the atrium lobby, together with the semi stacking flue outlet openings and water wall during the working time with high inlet to outlet opening area ratio (>15). In this case, the atrium benefits from two different airflow patterns during the working time to reduce both the indoor temperature and the humidity.