Hospital Atrium

Client - E A Pearce & Partners Ltd

Part of a planned re-development of a hospital in London is to create a light and airy 3-storey atrium space, which is enclosed on three sides. The original plan was to ventilate and cool the space using a number of supply diffusers and two fixed flow-rate fans at roof level.

Flow Analysis were commissioned to simulate the internal environment and, if necessary, to work with E A Pearce & Partners Ltd on modifications to ensure occupant comfort.

The project was tackled in two stages - the first stage being dynamic thermal simulation (DTS) and the second being computational fluid dynamics (CFD). Since the focus was on summertime over-heating, a hot, sunny day from a suitable weather data set was chosen for the DTS.

The results immediately indicated an overheating problem associated with high levels of solar radiation transmitted through the glass roof on to a second floor balcony/waiting area below. The solution was found to be solar-control glass, and by simply repeating the simulations the optimum glazing was determined.

A CFD simulation was conducted for the worst-case scenario time-instant. With the high performance glazing in place, the results confirmed that the conditions should be comfortable. The only issue of some concern was found to be the relatively high air velocities associated with the supply diffusers. This should be rectified by installing more diffusers.

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