Abstract
Wind towers have been used for the buildings passive cooling, in warm and dry regions. The wind towers are employed to capture the wind from the external air stream and direct it into the buildings and facilitate the circulation of the air from ambient through the building. The wind towers are not able to decrease the air temperature. In some locations of Iran such as Bam, the wind tower outlet was first directed into an underground channel, before being introduced into the building. The channel was built under the garden to employ the humidly of soil to cool down the air. In this paper, a small scale model of underground air-earth heat exchanger is employed to assess the system performance. The paper reports the effect of the garden irrigation time, humidity and temperature diurnal variations of the ambient air on the channel performance. The results show that when the garden is irrigated, and soil moisture content is at the higher level, the maximum average cooling performance of the channel is achieved, 51.30%. The temperature drop of the air inside the channel is due both the evaporation of moisture from the channel wall and the lower temperature of the soil than air.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Afshin M, Sohankar A, Dehghan Manshadi M, Kazemi Esfeh M (2016). An experimental study on the evaluation of natural ventilation performance of a two-sided wind-catcher for various wind angles. Renewable Energy, 85:1068–1078.
Dehghan A, Kazemi Esfeh M, Manshadi M (2013). Natural ventilation characteristics of one-sided wind catchers: experimental and analytical evaluation. Energy and Buildings, 61: 366–377.
Hedayat Z, Belmans B, Ayatollahi M, Wouters I, Descamps F (2015). Performance assessment of ancient wind catchers—An experimental and Analytical Study. Energy Procedi, 78: 2578–2583.
Hughes B, Kaiser Calautit J, Abdul Ghani S (2012). The development of commercial wind towers for natural ventilation: A review. Applied Energy, 92: 606–627.
Jafarian SM, Jaafarian SM, Haseli P, Taheri M (2010). Performance analysis of a passive cooling system using underground channel (Naghb). Energy and Building, 42: 559–562.
Jomehzadeh F, Nejat P, Kaiser Calautit J, Mohd Yusofa M, Zakid S, Hughes B, Noor Afiq Muhammad Yazi M (2017). A review on wind catcher for passive cooling and natural ventilation in buildings, Part 1: Indoor air quality and thermal comfort assessment. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 70: 736–756.
Kazemi Esfeh M, Dehghan A, Dehghan Manshadi M, Mohagheghian S (2012). Visualized flow structure around and inside of one-sided wind-catchers. Energy and Buildings, 55: 545–552.
Meteorological Organization of I.R. of Iran. Available at https://doi.org/ndwmc.irimo.ir/eng/wd/1608-season.html.
Rafiee Fanood M (2014). The role of four key structures in the creation and survival of cultural landscapes in the desert environment of Iran. Journal of Architectural Conservation, 20: 184–196.
Sabzi D, Haseli P, Jafarian M, Karimi G, Taheri M (2015). Investigation of cooling load reduction in buildings by passive cooling options applied on roof. Energy and Buildings, 109: 135–142.
Wu JM, Huang X, Zhang H (2009). Theoretical analysis on heat and mass transfer in a direct evaporative cooler. Applied Thermal Engineering, 29: 980–984.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Jaafarian, M. An experimental investigation of the wind tower-assisted by the underground passive cooling system. Build. Simul. 11, 1179–1187 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12273-018-0465-5
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12273-018-0465-5