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Numerical simulation of a combination of a new solar ventilator and geothermal heat exchanger for natural ventilation and space cooling

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Abstract

In this article, cooling and ventilating performance of the passive cooling system is investigated numerically. This system consists of a novel vertical solar chimney with fins and an earth-air heat exchanger to work as an alternative ventilation, and air-conditioning system during the summer in a hot and arid climate (Yazd, Iran). In this study, the RNG \(K-\varepsilon\) turbulence model was utilized to simulate the internal fluid flow. Geometric parameters of the solar chimney such as its height, diameter, number of fins, the depth, length, and diameter of the Earth-air heat exchanger 's pipes were studied. The optimum geometry performance during different day times is also investigated numerically by ANSYS Fluent 18.2 on the hottest day of the year. Given the numerical study, the optimum geometry consists of (a) solar chimney with 6 m height, 1 m diameter, and 3 fins, and (b) Earth-air heat exchanger’s pipes with 7 m depth, 360 m length, and 0.2 m diameter. The best performance for the hottest day of the year reached at 14:00 when the indoor temperature experienced 295.07 K, solar chimney and Earth-air heat exchanger outlet temperature was 306.18 and 288.18 K, respectively. Besides, this system satisfied the ventilation requirements for laboratories and residential sectors and was able to save 85% of energy consumption at the best performance point.

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Abbreviations

ACH:

Air change per hour

CFD:

Computational fluid dynamics

EAHE:

Earth-air heat exchanger

GHE:

Ground heat exchanger

HVAC:

Heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning

IAQ:

Indoor air quality

LPM:

Liter per minute

PV:

Photovoltaic module

PCM:

Phase change material

RNG:

Renormalization group

SC:

Solar chimney

UDF:

User defined functions

\(C_{a}\) :

Specific heat \(\left( {\frac{{\text{J}}}{{{\text{kg}}\,{\text{K}}}}} \right)\)

g :

Gravitational acceleration

\(G_{k}\) :

Generation of turbulence kinetic energy due to the mean velocity gradients

\(G_{b}\) :

Generation of turbulence kinetic energy due to buoyancy

h :

Convective heat transfer coefficient \(\left( {\frac{{\text{W}}}{{{\text{m}}^{2} \,{\text{K}}}}} \right)\)

K :

Thermal conductivity \(\left( {\frac{{\text{W}}}{{{\text{m}}\,{\text{K}}}}} \right)\)

Q :

Volumetric flow rate \(\left( {\frac{{{\text{Lit}}}}{{\text{s}}}} \right)\)

\(S_{k}\) :

Turbulent kinetic energy source term

\(S_{\varepsilon }\) :

Rate of dissipation of turbulent kinetic energy source term

t :

Time (s)

\(T_{0}\) :

Operating temperature (K)

T :

Temperature (K)

u :

Velocity \(\left( {\frac{{\text{m}}}{{\text{s}}}} \right)\)

V :

Volume (m3)

Y m :

Contribution of the fluctuating dilatation incompressible turbulence to the overall dissipation rate

\(\alpha_{k}\) :

Inverse effective Prandtl numbers for \(k\)

\(\alpha_{\varepsilon }\) :

Inverse effective Prandtl numbers for \(\varepsilon\)

\(\beta\) :

Thermal expansion coefficient

\(\varepsilon\) :

Rate of dissipation of turbulent kinetic energy

\(\mu\) :

Dynamic viscosity \(\left( {\frac{{{\text{kg}}}}{{{\text{m}}\,{\text{s}}}}} \right)\)

\(\mu_{{{\text{eff}}}}\) :

Effective viscosity \(\left( {\frac{{{\text{kg}}}}{{{\text{m}}\,{\text{s}}}}} \right)\)

\(k\) :

Turbulent kinetic energy

\(\rho\) :

Fluid density \(\left( {\frac{{{\text{kg}}}}{{{\text{m}}^{3} }}} \right)\)

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Authors and Affiliations

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

    Vali Kalantar & Amirhossein Khayyaminejad

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  1. Vali Kalantar
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Correspondence to Vali Kalantar.

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Kalantar, V., Khayyaminejad, A. Numerical simulation of a combination of a new solar ventilator and geothermal heat exchanger for natural ventilation and space cooling. Int J Energy Environ Eng 13, 785–804 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40095-021-00463-4

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