The Effect of Changing Ventilation Conditions after COVID-19 on Thermal Loads in Naturally Ventilated Higher Education Classrooms

It is difficult to control the recommended ventilation rates for infection control during the COVID-19 preriod by natural ventilation. While insufficient ventilation increases the risk of infection, excessive ventilation can cause problems in energy efficiency in buildings depending on climatic conditions. Therefore, in order to provide an easier infection control in naturally ventilated classrooms, the recommended ventilation scenarios after COVID-19 should be examined in terms of energy efficiency and the most suitable periods for natural ventilation should be determined. In this study, the effects of ventilation scenarios developed based on ventilation recommended by international organizations and ventilation scenarios developed based on infection risk during the COVID-19 period on heating-cooling energy demands were analyzed and the most suitable periods for natural ventilation were determined according to climates.Thus, for naturally ventilated classrooms located in different climate zones, the appropriate period in terms of thermal comfort and heating-cooling energy demand for the academic year's work schedule during the COVID-19 pandemic period can be determined.Ventilation rates based on infection risk were determined by two different mathematical models based on the modified Wells-Riley equation that was improved according to SARS-COV-2. The heating-cooling energy demands of the classrooms were calculated according to the heat balance method with the building energy simulation. The proposed method was applied to a naturally ventilated higher education building as a case study. The results show that the differences in the recommended ventilation scenarios after COVID-19 also cause differences in heating and cooling loads. It has been observed that the natural ventilation required after COVID-19 reduces the total energy demand for building heating and cooling between 25.54% and %27.48 in hot and temperate climates and can increase it by 69.59% in cold climates compared to before COVID-19. Other results have shown the importance of determining the Academic Work Year Schedule in terms of energy efficiency in airborne outbreaks such as SARS-COV-2 in line with the periods most suitable for natural ventilation depending on climatic conditions.