Biomimetic: a new strategy for a passive sustainable ventilation system design in hot and arid regions

The present research aimed to develop an innovative strategy based on biologically inspired technologies for the design of a passive ventilation and cooling system through the implementation of biomimetic principles for an existing typical urban residential configuration lot in South East of Algeria. Summer cooling, for the present case study, is based highly on mechanical means for cooling and ventilating, and dwellings suffer sick building syndrome, lack of natural ventilation, and high overall energy consumption. Humans desiring to improve their lives have always checked nature for solutions and inspirations. They were helped by scientific approaches to find, extract, and adapt some mechanisms and strategies from nature to engineer novel devices and resolve existing problems and challenges. The article reviews the various aspects of biomimetics addressing natural ventilation and develops a strategic methodology as a bio-problem solver. The main goal of this strategy is supporting the abstraction of natural systems that have been selected to enhance the performance of building so that its design is responsive to its internal and external environment, through transforming the main results of the biomimicry procedure to design concepts. A comparative study has been set up to demonstrate the viability of the new approach using CFD simulations and thermal performance analysis. It has been proved that the proposed system improves the living conditions and the occupant comfort and provides an effective ventilation strategy to refresh the air, removes unwanted smells from cooking, and guarantees occupant comfort. The results show clearly that the new system of ventilation improves flow rates in the building and therefore the ventilation behavior and the thermal comfort.