Experimental, CFD simulation and parametric studies on modified solar chimney for building ventilation

The solar chimney is a passive solar system which can be used for enhance the natural ventilation and space conditioning of a building. A solar chimney design is modified and installed at CBRI Roorkee (29.87 degree N 77.88 degree E), India. A Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software is used for prediction of velocity and temperature in Modified solar chimney (MSC) and evaluating the Air Change per hour (ACH), which is validated through experimental and theoretical counterpart and found a good agreement between them. From the result of thermal performance analysis, it is found that MSC generates 2.39-7.13 ACH in experimental room in month of May 2013, when outdoor solar radiation was in the range of 250-612 W/m². Due to this ACH, the room temperature is dropped by 2-4 degree C as compared to reference room temperature. The parametric study shows that the optimum glass tilt angle estimated by 5 degree for highest performance consideration of MSC. The air gap is optimised by 60 mm and air gap to inlet opening height ratio is optimised by 0.2. (author)