Ventilation design in large enclosures for sports events using CFD: the halls of the “Città dello Sport” in Rome

Buildings with large enclosure often present unresolved problems related to energy and air flows such as unwanted thermal stratification, local overheating, uncontrolled contaminant spreading. These kind of constructions are often found in unique buildings where innovative designs are developed. Consequently, there exists no previous experience and very careful analysis on the ventilation design is advisable [1]. This is particularly true for the halls of the “Città dello Sport” in Rome, designed by Santiago Calatrava, because of their singularity in term of dimension and shape. The CFD simulations here presented are playing a significant role in the on to go design of these unique large enclosure buildings for the optimisation of the HVAC strategies. The simulated heat, cooling and ventilation system defines three different climatic zones in order to minimize the energy consumption: the swimming pool plane and the playground where optimal condition for the athletes have to be assumed; the stands where the people watching the event is placed; the huge volume under the roofing where particular climate conditions aren’t required. The simulated system provides a particular ventilation system using a controlled airflow to heat and cool the mass of the stands, which afterwards operates directly in the zone occupied by the spectators. The swimming pool level and the basketball playground are heated, cooled and ventilated by a dedicated HVAC system. Air velocity, temperature and relative humidity fields in the indoor space of the building, in condition of maximum external and internal thermal loads have been obtained from simulations, in order to evaluate suggested value for the designing process of the HVAC system.