DE-13-C021 -- Air Flow in Places of Worship

The selection and control of the cooling, ventilation and air conditioning systems to provide controlled internal conditions in historic and heavy weighted buildings requires knowledge not only of the effectiveness of the proposed system providing the required conditions quickly and efficiently, but also on the long term effects of the system and any sudden fluctuations of the internal climatic conditions on the comfort and on the life of the building envelope itself and any work of arts that are there. Places of worship, are of high spiritual nature and commonly architecturally elite. The occupants are usually praying either standing or bowing, kneeling and sitting as well. The level of activities should be accounted for the thermal load calculations.

The present work is a numerical investigation to point out the factors affecting the air outlets position, size and orientation in various places of worship. A commercial package was utilized with more than 1000000 tetrahedral grid volumes. The activity level, position of occupant and arrangement in the designated spaces are investigated. The performance of the air conditioning system is characterized by air flow patterns, temperature and relative humidity contours as well as the PMV and PPD. Three examples are shown here for an archaeological mosque of moderate size (900 prayers) in Cairo, Egypt, The grand mosque extension project (500000 prayers) in 'Mecca', Saudi Arabia, and the St.Mary's Orthodox Church (450 prayers) in Cairo, Egypt. The paper ends with a brief summary of conclusions and guidelines for design remarks.