The mur neutralisant as an active thermal system: Saint Gobain tests (1931) versus CFD simulation (2015)

Abstract

At the same time as the initial development of air conditioning systems for indoor climate control in buildings were occurring in USA, Le Corbusier and Lyon made truly innovative proposals for different projects he was working on in Europe. These served to generate homogenous thermal environments and focused on the combined effect of his mur neutralisant and respiration exacte. The clearest example of their shortcomings is the City of Refuge in Paris (1930-33). Given the technological and economic mistrust towards these proposals, as it was impossible to execute these according to the original plan these were not pursued. CFD simulations carried out by our research team confirm that the mur neutralisant and respiration exacte for the City of Refuge in Paris would have functioned together if they had been executed following the original plans. The main aim of this paper is to confirm the validity of the mur neutralisant as an active thermal system for buildings. Firstly, the results of the tests carried out by the engineers of Saint Gobain are compared to the results of the CFD simulations. Based on the comparison of the results from the physical models tested in Saint Gobain laboratories and CFD energy model simulations, a possible calibration is proposed for CFD which might prompt the establishment of other operation hypotheses.