Human-behavior oriented control strategies for natural ventilation in office buildings

Natural ventilation is a cost-effective way to reduce cooling energy for buildings. However, the performance of natural ventilation largely depends on outdoor climate. A good and feasible control strategy is the key to ensure high performance of natural ventilation. Typically, windows are operated by occupants. Therefore, a control strategy that based on human behavior can enhance the performance of natural ventilation. This paper studied four different control strategies that simulate human behavior based on temperature and humidity in a climate with high outdoor humidity. The results showed that human behavior based control strategy can largely reduce the high humidity hours during occupied hours while only slightly increases air temperature.