Computational Fluid Dynamics Modeling

As the architectural design of high-performance buildings continues to evolve, the need to reduce energy consumption and operating costs continues to increase with more stringent building codes and regulations, plus increasing restrictive fire safety codes for building atrium spaces, AHA quickly realized the need and benefit to having in-house Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) modeling capabilities. AHA’s CFD Modeling Team has proven experience developing heat transfer as well as fire safety & smoke management CFD models. Our Team analyzes the effect of airflow and temperature on occupant safety, systems performance, and operational costs especially for high-performance data centers and atrium spaces. In creating a CFD model, our specialized software simulates data center temperature and air movement, and atrium smoke dispersion including representative dynamic conditions, which provide the ability to generate simulations based on different potential conditions/scenarios. The AHA CFD Team is then able to use the appropriate modeling simulation results to inform the MEP engineering systems Design Team on how best to optimize the layout of critical equipment and system components. From our experience, a CFD model results in cost savings of multiple times the cost of the model itself.