CFD based investigation on the performance of solar chimney for room natural ventilation

Although many approaches have been proposed to save energy in buildings, it still remains a significant issue in the construction industry. This research presents an approach to use natural ventilation with a solar chimney to reduce heat gain and considerable energy consumption. In typical solar chimneys, airflow is induced by the thermal effect caused by solar radiation. The induced flow creates natural ventilation for the connected building. This paper focuses on investigating the performance of a solar chimney integrated into a one-story room. In order to predict the flowrate, the Computable Fluid Dynamic (CFD) model was used to simulate the vertical solar chimney with the inlet size of 1500 mm x 400 mm and 4250 mm in height, the air gap of 400 mm, under different solar radiation of 100 W/m2, 200 W/m2, 300 W/m2, 400 W/m2, 500 W/m2 for a room whose internal dimension is 6800mm x 4000mm x 4000mm. The result shows that solar radiation could increase the rate of ventilation of the room up to 660 m3/h (air change per hour of 6.1) with the solar radiation of 500 W/m2.