Small and Full-Scale Modeling for the Application of Wall Solar Chimneys

A solar chimney is a natural ventilation technique that has a potential to save energy consumption as well as to maintain the air quality in the building. However, studies of buildings are often challenging due to their large sizes. The objective of the current study was to determine relationships between small- and full-scale solar chimney system models. In the current work, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) was utilized to model different building sizes with a solar chimney system, where the computational model was validated with the experimental study of Mathur et al. The window, which controls entrainment of ambient air, was also studied to determine the effects of window position. Correlations for average velocity ratio and non-dimensional temperature were consistent regardless of window position. Buckingham pi theorem was employed to further non-dimensionalize the important variables. Regression analysis was conducted to develop a mathematical model to predict a relationship among all of the variables, where the model agreed well with simulation results with an error of 2.33%. The study demonstrated that the flow and thermal conditions in larger buildings can be predicted from the small-scale model.