Client - Architon LLP

Although such atria are a very attractive proposition for the occupants, maintaining comfortable conditions throughout the year can present a significant building services challenge.

Flow Analysis Ltd were commissioned to assist in this task by analysing the performance of the atrium during summer and to size the underfloor heating.

The analysis was conducted in two phases; a dynamic thermal simulation (DTS) first phase and a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) second phase.

In the DTS phase, a model of the entire building is created, including details of the building fabric, schedules of internal heat gains and realistic aperture opening profiles. A real weather data set for an entire year is then used to determine the performance of the atrium. The temperatures and bulk air flows are determined over the summer period at several locations within the atrium. The results of this analysis showed that the ground floor temperature frequencies were within acceptable limits, but some attention was required at higher level. With the addition of localised shading, the conditions at these higher level locations were predicted to be much more satisfactory, without adversely affecting daylighting levels.

The final CFD phase looked in detail at the conditions throughout the atrium and confirmed that the risk of draughts through the lower level openings due to the stack effect were within comfortable limits. See the image above for the CFD model and the images to the right for various CFD results.

Click here for thermal analysis of the remainder of the building and here for daylight analysis.

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