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Numerical investigation of the heating performance of normal and new designed Trombe wall

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Abstract

In this paper a numerical comparison has been made between the heating performance of the new designed and normal Trombe wall under Yazd (Iran) desert climate. The new designed Trombe wall increases the indoor space and decreases the implementation cost of the Trombe wall. In addition, it can receive solar intensity from three directions while the normal Trombe wall can only receive the solar intensity from one direction. The numerical simulation shows that the new designed Trombe wall causes the all parts temperature to increase about 10 °C in comparison with the normal Trombe wall. The velocity through the vents and the channel in the new designed Trombe wall is about 0.03 and 0.01 m/s more than that of the normal Trombe wall respectively. Comparison of two systems shows that the maximum hourly stored energy of the new designed Trombe wall is about 1600 kJ/h more than that of the normal system. Also, the new designed Trombe wall improves the average daily heating efficiency about 27 %.

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Abbreviations

A v :

Vents area (m2)

C p :

Specific heat of airflow at constant pressure (J/kg K)

C :

Specific heat of concrete (J/kg K)

E :

Energy term (J)

f i :

External body force in ith direction (N/m3)

h a :

Convective heat transfer coefficient of ambient (W/m2 K)

I a :

Heat gained by the absorber (W)

i :

Internal energy (J)

k :

Thermal conductivity (W/m K)

m :

Mass of concrete (kg)

P :

Static pressure (Pa)

\(\dot{Q}\) :

Heat transferred to the room through the vents (W)

S h :

Volumetric energy source

T :

Temperature (K)

T avg.Ta :

Average temperature of the absorber (K)

T avg.Tb :

Average temperature of the back of the Trombe wall (K)

T lower :

Average air temperature through lower vent (K)

T upper :

Average air temperature through upper vent (K)

t :

Time (s)

u i , u j :

Direction velocity (m/s)

V a :

Outdoor velocity (m/s)

V v :

Air velocity through vents (m/s)

∀:

Volume (m3)

x i , x j :

Cartesian directions

ρ :

Air density (kg/m3)

ρ c :

Concrete density (kg/m3)

η :

Heating efficiency

Φ :

Dissipation function

μ :

Dynamic viscosity (Pa s)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Yazd University, Yazd, Iran

    Mehran Rabani & Vali Kalantar

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  1. Mehran Rabani
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  2. Vali Kalantar
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Correspondence to Mehran Rabani.

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Rabani, M., Kalantar, V. Numerical investigation of the heating performance of normal and new designed Trombe wall. Heat Mass Transfer 52, 1139–1151 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00231-015-1616-1

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