Thermal comfort and indoor air quality analysis of a low-energy cooling windcatcher

Calautit, John Kaiser; Aquino, Angelo I.; Shahzad, Sally; Nasir, Diana S.N.M.; Hughes, Ben Richard

Abstract

The aim of this work was to investigate the performance of a roof-mounted cooling windcatcher integrated with heat pipes using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and field test analysis. The windcatcher model was incorporated to a 5m x 5m x3 m test room model. The study employed the CFD code FLUENT 15 with the standard k-? model to conduct the steady-state RANS simulation. The numerical model provided detailed analysis of the airflow and temperature distribution inside the test room. The CO2 concentration analysis showed that the system was capable of delivering fresh air inside the space and lowering the CO2 levels. The thermal comfort was calculated using the Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) method. The PMV values ranged between +0.48 to +0.99 and the average was +0.85 (slightly warm). Field test measurements were carried out in the Ras-Al-Khaimah (RAK), UAE during the month of September. Numerical model was validated using experimental data and good agreement was observed between both methods of analysis.

Citation

Calautit, J. K., Aquino, A. I., Shahzad, S., Nasir, D. S., & Hughes, B. R. (2017). Thermal comfort and indoor air quality analysis of a low-energy cooling windcatcher. Energy Procedia, 105, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.egypro.2017.03.634

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: May 27, 2017
• Online Publication Date: Jun 1, 2017
• Publication Date: May 31, 2017
• Deposit Date: Aug 16, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 16, 2017
• Journal: Energy Procedia
• Print ISSN: 1876-6102
• Electronic ISSN: 1876-6102
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 105
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.egypro.2017.03.634
• Keywords: Built Environment; Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD); Cooling; Energy; Natural Ventilation
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/863682
• Publisher URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1876610217306884
• Additional Information: 8th International Conference on Applied Energy, ICAE2016, 8-11 October 2016, Beijing, China