Toward improving thermal behavior of passive solar structures by natural ventilation and extraction – case study

Improving the energy performance of passive energy buildings is based on reducing their consumption. These reach very high levels in overheating periods because of the mechanical ventilation systems. This work proposes to implement ventilation strategies to reduce the in-door temperature of an academic building considered a passive solar structure and designed to benefit as much as possible from solar radiation. Using TRNSYS software, with its two components, TRNBUILD and TRNFLOW, different likely scenarios were tested and allowed to identify significant results. The mechanical extraction system is a solution if the extraction threshold temperature is 21-19°C to keep the Hall_1 temperature lower. While, to make the temperature of all areas of the building more comfortable, three natural ventilation scenarios were evaluated. Obtained results highlight that natural ventilation scenario (circuit 2) is the optimal scenario which makes the different zones very comfortable and lowers the tempera-ture by an average of 4°C compared to mechanical ventilation. Thanks to the proposed venti-lation scenarios, we have shown that we can, thanks to natural ventilation, renew the air inside the different areas of the building and maintain the comfort temperature. Natural ventilation can be an alternative to mechanical ventilation if we consider appropriate scenarios. This will strongly reduce energy consumption.