Investigation of air flow pattern in the central courtyard in Qajar houses of Isfahan by CFD method

Traditional house yards in the desert cities of Iran play an important role in balancing and subtilizing the house's air. Its overall composition varies somewhat across Iran due to climatic and cultural reasons. Esfahan central courtyard houses also have a special combination. The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the process of central courtyard airflow (natural ventilation), influenced by the prevailing wind in late Qajar period houses in Isfahan (statistical population of research) and Labaf House as a random sample. The present study is an interdisciplinary research and uses a mixed method to conduct the research. In the first step (after selecting Labaf's house as a case study), using an empirical strategy, the independent variables were identified, and the dependent variables (velocity and direction of airflow) were measured by digital devices and smoke tests. The data were then analyzed using a simulation strategy. The simulations were performed by computational fluid dynamics (CFD) using Gambit and Fluent software. The results showed that in the statistical field the indoor air flow in the observer plane is opposite to the outside wind direction and in the northern third position (in the south north axis of the yard), an irregular eddy flow occurs and air is propagated to all locations of house, from this point.