A study on air circulation: the case of House VI of “Vila” 37 with the application of wind-catch

The continuous process of urban transformation, as well as the changes that take place within the built environments themselves, interfere in the ventilation dynamic. This happened to Vila 37 - in Rio de Janeiro city - where the houses had to grow vertically, and were consequently swallowed by other urban volumes. Aiming to analyze the changes that took place in these confined ventilation spaces, house number VI was evaluated. Simulations using wind-capture was carried out in an attempt to increase and promote better ventilation. The analysis starts by solving the air circulation problem to determine the wind fields by using a mixed stabilized finite element method that is applied to the full Navier-Stokes equations. The computational simulation results of the original situation were compared with the results of the new scenario. The computational results suggest that the use of these strategies presents a good potential to provide ventilation with low environmental and economic costs.