Investigation of optimal natural ventilation in residential complexes design for temperate and humid climates

Renewable energies have been discussed as the main efficient solution for solving many issues regarding climate change. Statistics said that the share of the building sector is very high in excessive use of fossil fuels. This study aimed to utilize the natural wind to create optimal natural ventilation to achieve thermal comfort of the indoor environment through the best layout and placement of residential blocks, creating proper distance between blocks and orienting blocks properly inside a residential complex site in a summery humid climate. Also, some strategies for achieving indoor thermal comfort are proposed based on the climatic need calendar of hot and humid Anzali port. The study of wind flow across blocks and within buildings was performed by the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation method. Results showed that the proper orientation for the blocks was provided by rotation of +20° till +30° to the southeast, which would receive the prevailing summer wind from the northeast and lead it into the interior environment and when the distance between blocks is equal to the height (h) of buildings (±%25 h) can create the maximum wind velocity. Also, to reach this high wind velocity in the buildings the size of outlet openings should be larger than the inlet openings.