The design of safe classrooms of educational buildings for facing contagions and transmission of diseases: A novel approach combining audits, calibrated energy models, building performance (BPS) and computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations

The proposed investigation is aimed at providing useful suggestions and guidelines for the renovation educational buildings, in order to do University classrooms safe and sustainable indoor places, with respect to the 2020 SARS-CoV-2 global pandemic. Classrooms and common spaces have to be thought again, for a new in-presence life, after the recent worldwide emergency following the spring 2020 demic diffusion of COVID-19. In this paper, starting from a real case study, and thus the architectural technological refurbishment of an Italian University building (Campobasso, South Italy, cold climate), with the aims of improving the classrooms' quality and safety, a comprehensive approach for the retrofit design is proposed. By taking into account the necessary come back to classrooms starting, hopefully, from the next months (Autumn 2020), experimental studies (monitoring and investigations of the rent energy performances) are followed by the coupling of different numerical methods of investigations, and thus building performance simulations, under transient conditions of heat transfer, and computational fluid dynamics studies, to evidence criticalities and potentialities to designers involved in re-thinking of indoor spaces hosting multiple persons, with quite high occupancy patterns. Both energy impacts, in terms of monthly and annual increase of energy demands due to higher mechanical ventilation, and indoor distribution of microclimatic parameters (i.e., temperature, airspeed, age of air) are investigated, by proposing new scenarios and evidencing the usefulness of HVAC systems, equipment (e.g., sensible heat recovery, without flows' contamination) and suitability of some strategies for air distribution systems (ceiling squared and linear slot diffusers) compared to traditional ones. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

The proposed study aims to provide suggestions for renovating educational buildings to make University classrooms safe and sustainable indoor spaces in response to the 2020 SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. By conducting experimental and numerical investigations, the authors propose a comprehensive retrofit design approach to improve classroom quality and safety, highlighting the importance of HVAC systems and equipment in indoor air quality management.