Modeling and control of hybrid ventilation in a building with double skin façade

The development of an accurate control of hybrid ventilation which combines the strengths of natural ventilation and mechanical ventilation relies on better energy efficiency and healthy Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) in buildings. This paper focuses on development of mathematical models for natural ventilation and mechanical ventilation through the use of temperature differences, and on design of a control strategy for hybrid ventilation that switches between control actions for both ventilation modes to optimize energy consumption while maintaining IAQ and thermal comfort at the desired setpoints. These control actions are developed to automatically adjust the position of motorized dampers at the button of the cavity, the position of the motorized windows of the test-cell, and turn on the air-supply fan only when needed. The paper ends with a demonstration and discussion of real experiments on the flexibility and effectiveness of the proposed control strategy for hybrid ventilation in the test-cell building case study.