Solar chimney integrated with passive evaporative cooler applied on glazing surfaces

Abstract

This study investigates the performance of a hybrid system applied on glazing surfaces for reducing the space cooling load and radiation asymmetry. The proposed system combines the principles of passive evaporative cooling with the natural buoyant flow in solar chimneys to entrain outdoor air and attenuate the window surface temperature. A predictive heat and mass transport model combining the evaporative cooler, glazing section, solar chimney and an office space is developed to study the system performance in harshly hot climates. The developed model was validated through experiments conducted in a twin climatic chamber for given ambient temperature, humidity, and solar radiation conditions. Good agreement was found between the measured and the predicted window temperatures and space loads at maximum discrepancy lower than 4.3%. The proposed system is applied to a typical office space to analyze its effectiveness in reducing the window temperature, the space load and radiation asymmetry, while maintaining the indoor comfort conditions. Results have shown that the system is reduced the space load by −19.8% and attenuated the radiation asymmetry significantly for office spaces having window-to-wall ratio of 40% in climate of Riyadh, KSA. The system performance diminished when applied in locations suffering from humid weather climates. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd