The National Academic Grand Theatre of Opera and Ballet or Opernyi teatr (in Russian), was built between 1935 and 1937 by Josef Langbard and opened with a performance of Eugene Tikotsky's Michas Padhorny. Since then the theatre has endured closure due to invasion during World War 2, the fall of communism and independence from Russia. In 2006 the renovation of the theatre began with an overhaul of the interior decoration and all the stage equipment.

As part of the renovation the complete installation of a new lighting system, significantly more powerful than the existing installation, was undertaken. This new system posed significant engineering challenges as the heat generation increased significantly leading to the need to retrofit a new air conditioning and cooling system. This new system was designed to not only ensure that the lighting itself does not overheat but also that occupant comfort in the auditorium was not adversely affected.

The theatre itself, in fitting with its grand nature, encloses a massive volume of air, with a stage suitable for up to 60 actors, an orchestra pit housing 83 musicians and over 1000 seats in the auditorium. The seating area can be subdivided into three areas, the stalls, balcony and dress circle. The stalls and stage are cooled by a displacement ventilation system while the orchestra pit and balcony use convection top-to-top ventilation. In the stalls air is supplied through special low-speed distributors located under the seats of the audience.

To ensure that the ventilation installed is effective enough to ensure that both audience, orchestra, actors and lighting stay comfortable; simulations were carried out using STAR-CD. A “worst case scenario” study was carried out looking at the conditions that are likely to be encountered during a performance, with a full auditorium, orchestra and stage up to capacity with performers, stage lights on and house lights off.

A fully unstructured mesh was used to simulate the temperature and flow within the theatre with inlets used to simulate the ventilation systems and volumetric heat sources for the audience, actors, lights etc. Inlet volumetric flow rates and temperatures are shown in table 1. Given the anisotropic and largely buoyancy driven nature of the flow, the quadratic k-ε model was used.

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Stephen Ferguson is a well informed author who writes articles and reviews for cd-adapco.com. CD-adapco is the leading global provider of full-spectrum engineering simulation (CAE) solutions for fluid flow, heat transfer and stress. for more information on CFD software, CAD Software visit cd-adapco.com

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