A Study on Stack-driven Dwelling Infiltration Estimation in High-Rise Residential Buildings based on RTDC for Enhancing the Performance of ECO2

With the rise of Zero Energy Buildings (ZEBs), energy performance simulation has become essential for evaluating building designs in their early stages. However, in ECO2, key input variables like infiltration rates often depend on empirical values or conventional assumptions, limiting the reliability of these simulations. To overcome this challenge, this study develops a theoretical model that predicts stack-driven infiltration in high-rise residential buildings using the Residential Thermal Draft Coefficient (RTDC). When tested on a real building, the model demonstrated strong accuracy in predicting infiltration rates, achieving average errors of 15.58% for CV(RMSE) and 6.144% for NMBE when compared to multi-zone airflow simulation results. Additionally, using the predicted infiltration values, ECO2 showed an energy demand reduction of 11 kWh/m² compared to results derived from the ZEB pre-certification infiltration standard. These findings suggest that the RTDC-based infiltration model can accurately predict energy patterns in high-rise residential buildings and has potential for direct integration into building energy simulations.