The benefits and limitations of time-dependent and
steady state computational fluid dynamics
simulations when evaluating natural ventilation were
explored in a naturally ventilated case study
apartment in the Mediterranean. For wind driven
flows, indoor air properties responded quickly (i.e.
within 1-min) to changing outdoor conditions, except
indoor air temperatures (up to 30-min). The outdoor
air temperature variations could reverse the flow
direction during buoyancy-driven ventilation. Strong
correlations between the steady state and transient
simulation results were predicted (<1% error).
Comparable indoor temperatures were found from
simulations with both coarse and fine time steps, and
up to 2% difference was found for indoor velocities
