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a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history: In the present study, an attempt is made to study the cooling performance of a wind tower in a hot and
Received 15 April 2007 dry region, Yazd, in Iran. For the relevant experiments and numerical studies, at first, the temperature
Accepted 3 March 2008 and wind velocity inside and outside of the wind tower measured. Based on four-day measurements
Available online 30 June 2008
during last summer, a computer program was designed with language Cþþ to solve the equations. Also in
the study the effects of parameters including wind tower height, variety of the materials used in the
Keywords: wind tower walls, the amount of vaporized water, the temperature of input and output air, the wind
Ventilation
velocity and the relative humidity were investigated.
Water vapor
Wind blowing
Furthermore, to develop, a natural flow of air, for days without blowing a wind the role of solar chimney
Natural cooling was considered.
Airflow Finally, to evaluate the method of integral view and take information about streamlines of airflow in
Evaporative cooling wind tower (Baud-Geer), velocity, pressure, humidity, temperature and density profile of fluid, Fluent
software is applied to analyze the air flow in the wind tower in differential view for three-dimensional
and steady state conditions with water spraying at the top of wind tower.
The results indicate that the evaporative cooling is very effective in a hot and dry region. The temperature
decreases considerably, if the wind towers are equipped with the water vaporization system. This causes
the air becomes heavier and a natural motion of air through downside of wind tower to be produced.
Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction groundwater seeps through the inside of the basement wall of the
structure so that the evaporative cooling is done in the air passing
In hot and dry countries, there is a huge dependency on elec- over those walls. In these designs, natural downdraft is utilized to
tricity to run air conditioners to provide human comfort in urban produce the necessary airflow from the outside to the inside of the
areas. In these regions, using conventional wind towers (Fig. 1) to living space. Bahadori [2] performed analysis of the design of cool
achieve comfort is a well-known traditional technique. The wind towers. He applied his analysis to several locations, among which
towers maintain natural ventilation through living spaces due to Amman in Jordan is the one. He considered several design criteria,
wind as well as buoyancy effects (see, e.g., [1,2]) in order to reduce such as wind speed, temperature, etc.
the building heat load. In rural and in non-electrified areas, wind Yaghoubi et al. [3] found that the wind towers were effective not
ventilation and passive or natural convection cooling play a more only in strong wind but also in calm weather by providing a certain
dominant role. Evaporative cooling is one of the oldest methods air circulation to provide comfort in dwellings. At downside, they
used for air conditioning in dry climates. This model was used in old found that when the tower was subject to strong solar radiation
Middle Eastern cities and Persian Gulf States. The application and the tower structure was heated up, the circulating air was
ranged from having the walls and the floor of a room sprayed with heated up by hot surfaces causing discomfort.
water by the occupants to building special structures to bring cold Experimental studies [4] and a case study [5] on wind tower
and humid air to the living space. Bahadori [1] gives a good cooling performance have been reported. Studies on wind tower
description of these structures. In Iran, these building elements combined with the solar chimney [6,7] for ventilation has been also
are called Baud-Geer. The simplest form of this structure pro- reported. The results of these studies showed that ventilation by
vides sensible cooling only. When water is injected into the solar chimney was possible; the mass flow rate can increase the
system, evaporative cooling occurs. In many of these structures, function of the chimney surface temperature, reverse flow was
observed for certain channel sizes and the ventilation increased
with increasing inlet port size. Results show that the effect of solar
E-mail address: vkalantar@yazduni.ac.ir chimney is more important than that of wind and the combined
0960-1481/$ – see front matter Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.renene.2008.03.007
V. Kalantar / Renewable Energy 34 (2009) 246–254 247
system may be more effective in ventilating living quarters by warm air, so it moves downward. Consequently, there will be
increasing the mass flow rate of air by several times. a natural flow of air in the wind tower even without blowing
Using wind tower combined with solar chimney (Fig. 2) for a wind. In the case where we have wind blowing, this operation is
evaporative cooling reduces its energy consumption and polluted faster [9].
gases in atmosphere. The natural ventilation system is based on the movement of air
In this work, the design and performance of cool towers are through buildings to equalize pressure. This pressure difference is
investigated based on weather conditions and comfort criteria for mostly the result of wind blowing or the buoyancy effect created by
Yazd in Iran. This criterion is different from that previously adopted stratified warm air. Buoyancy results from difference in air density.
[2–5], where higher-than-actual input data such as wind speeds, The density of air depends on temperature and humidity. In an
ambience properties and tower configuration were assumed. In the equal humidity, cool air is heavier than the warm air; therefore,
present study for natural cooling of a building considering special dropping of the heavy air and the force at the back start airflow and
tower with spraying water at the top of it, full numerical simulation light air make the warm air exit from another channel [10].
is done in steady state, three-dimensional flow fields and fully In either case, the amount of ventilation will depend critically on
turbulent flow. The results show that we can also save a consider- the size and placement of openings in the building. The case shown
able amount of energy. in Fig. 1 is more common. The higher is the wind tower (which
means the more distance from entrance of air to exit of air) the
2. The cooling operation of a wind tower more is the pressure difference, similar to water column.
The wind causes a positive pressure on the windward side and
The mechanism of functioning and operation of wind towers a negative pressure on the leeward side of tower; therefore, there
depends on some elements including (a) the time of operation, will be fresh air entering from any windward opening and warm air
night or daytime, (b) the availability of wind, i.e. windy or not will go out from any leeward opening. If we have the suitable cooler
windy periods and (c) the type of wind towers. pads for vaporizing water in the entrance, the air will be humid. As
In addition, they are only used in summer time and closed down cool and heavy air comes into the building; at the same time, the
in winter. Description and operation of various cases are described; warm air has to exit from another side [11,12].
advantages and operational problems are discussed [1]. The major When there is no suitable and reliable wind, the ventilation will
factor of airflow in a wind tower is the gravity force without the use be problematic. In these cases, a solar chimney as shown in Fig. 2 is
of a fan [9]. In the case, we use the fan, the size of wind tower a good solution [6,9]. The solar chimney is completely isolated from
decreases. Usually there are some wet cooler pads on the top of the the surrounding. By radiation or solar energy, the air within the
wind tower. The dry air vaporizes the water droplet; therefore, channel becomes hot and moves upward, and creates suction at the
the air becomes cool and heavy. The cool air is heavier than the bottom, which is used to extract indoor air.
248 V. Kalantar / Renewable Energy 34 (2009) 246–254
1. Conservation of mass
For steady state, steady flow condition we have
X X
_i ¼
m _e
m (1)
For wind tower (as the control volume) at entrance and exit
place, we can write
_ ¼ rAV ðkg=sÞ
m (2)
X X
Q_ cv þ _ i hi þ 1=2v2i þ gZi ¼ W
m _ cv þ _ e he þ 1=2v2e þ gZe
m
(3)
Pv
RH ¼ (4)
Pg
Fig. 1. Wind tower (Baud-Geer).
Pv
u ¼ 0:622 (5)
P Pv
3. Theoretical analysis
y ¼ 1=r ¼ 0:37 Tdf þ 460 = P RH Pg (6)
The basic governing equations of the fluid flow are formulated in
two forms: integral and differential views, which are explained
in the following parts.
Table 1
3.1. Integral view The details of input and output data of computer program (Integral view Cþþ)
Part 4: calculation The rate of heat transfer from sun to wind tower (QT)
The partial pressure of the entering dry air (Pa)
The partial pressure of the vapor in the entering air (Pv)
The humidity ratio of the entering air (ui)
The density of the entering air (rI)
The enthalpy of the entering humid air (hi)
The mass of the entering humid air (m)
The mass of the entering dry air (ma)
hf and hfg for injected water considering the water temperature
The mass of water (humidity) in the entering air (mvi)
The relative humidity of the exit air (fo)
The mass of the exit humid air (mo)
The enthalpy of the exit air (ho) by applying first law of
thermodynamics
The dry bulb temperature of exit air (Tdfo)
The partial pressures of the exit dry air (Pso)
The partial pressure of the vapor in the exit air considering the
achieved (Pvo)
The humidity ratio of the exit air (uo)
Part 5: output The dry temperature of the exiting air from the wind tower
results The relative and ratio humidity of the exiting air from the wind
Fig. 2. Natural ventilation and evaporating cooling using wind tower and solar
tower
chimney [9].
V. Kalantar / Renewable Energy 34 (2009) 246–254 249
Table 2
The results of running program Cþþ
Output data
Temperature of exit air 22.836 13.84 Outside air
Relative humidity of exit air (%) 46.5 99.3 has been
Humidity ratio of exit air (kg of 0.008549 0.01 saturated
water/kg of dry air)
The exit condition of wind tower Pleasant High
condition humidity
2. Momentum equation
The Reynolds stresses ru0i u0j are related to the mean velocity
gradients by employing the Boussinesq hypothesis [15].
3. Energy equation
in the wind tower, furthermore to evaluate the result of integral view, where l is the thermal conductivity of the fluid, Jj is the diffusion
Fluent software is applied to analyze the airflow in the wind tower in flux of species j, and Sh is any volumetric energy source. The
three-dimensional and steady state conditions. Also spraying water term E in the previous equation is defined as follows:
drops at the top of wind tower to the airflow is considered.
X u2
3.2.1. Governing equations E ¼ hj Yj þ (11)
2
The basic assumptions for the CFD simulation include a three-
dimensional, fully turbulent, non-isothermal, incompressible flow.
The industry standard for turbulence simulation is the k–3 model
because of its robustness at a relatively low computational cost. The
transport equations for incompressible turbulent flow in tensor
notation, take the following form [15,16]:
1. Continuity equation
vðrui Þ
¼ Sm (8)
vxi
The mass source term, Sm, is added to or removed from the
continuous phase due to evaporation or condensation of the
liquid droplets.
Fig. 7. Computational domain with boundary condition. Fig. 8. Schematic diagram representing the wind tower with grid regions.
V. Kalantar / Renewable Energy 34 (2009) 246–254 251
Fig. 10. Streamlines and vortex due to airflow inside the wind tower.
252 V. Kalantar / Renewable Energy 34 (2009) 246–254
4.1. Results of integral view Fig. 12. The variation of relative humidity of airflow from entering to exiting.
Fig. 11. Injected water system to the airflow inside the wind tower and following the
concentration. Fig. 13. The variation of density of airflow from entering to exiting.
V. Kalantar / Renewable Energy 34 (2009) 246–254 253
By injection, water into airflow relative humidity of air increases Fig. 16. The variation of static pressure of mixture of dry air and water vapor inside the
which is shown in Fig. 12. The inlet air is dry and increase of relative wind tower.
humidity up to 50% is suitable for air-conditioning systems in hot
and dry regions.
In Fig. 13, as the water in the airflow is sprayed, air would downdraft towers flow has been described. The model is applicable
become heavier and flows downward. Therefore, the density of air for geometries of rectangular as well as circular or triangular cross-
increases. section. This has been embodied into a computer code that can be
It can be seen there is a sufficient decrease in air temperature used for performance evaluations as well as for design optimization
(Fig. 14). It comes from the absorption of heat in evaporative studies.
cooling. Therefore, after spraying water in the air, temperature The results obtained from integral and differential views, as well
would decrease very fast and then it slightly increases because the as experimental study show that the addition of water in the way of
walls of wind tower are not isolated against heat transfer and they dry airflow has a considerable effect on different parameters such
are capable of releasing conserved heat. as temperature, relative humidity, fluid velocity, density, etc.
In Fig. 15, the velocity of a fluid particle is shown from top to The cooling system is capable of decreasing air temperatures by
bottom of wind tower. The increase of velocity is due to the 10–15 C at the peak of its performance, depending on configura-
absorption of water by the air and it is in a heavier state. In tion and ambient conditions. The majority of this reduction (8–
other words, the negative buoyancy force is getting stronger. 12 C) is achieved within the top 2 m of the tower, even when
On the other hand in upper and lower turns of wind tower sprayers are spaced evenly throughout its height.
the streamlines get nearer to each other (the cross-section of From the investigation, it is found that a wind tower with the
airflow decreases due to vortex formation) so the velocity height 10 m and cross-sectional area of 2 m2 and wind velocity 3 m/
increases. s was operated during a summer season. The system produced
A change of pressure for a fluid particle, inside the wind tower, a peak cooling output of just over 100 kW with a water consump-
from top to bottom, along the middle line is shown in Fig. 16. Based tion rate of approximately 0.025 kg/s, without using mechanical
on Fig. 15 by increasing the velocity of fluid particles, their pressure force or consuming any fuels. This cooling load is sufficient for air-
would decrease at the inlet of tower and then by decreasing ve- conditioning floor space of building about 700 m2 areas in a city
locity, its pressure would increase. like Yazd in Iran.
Fig. 17 shows the mass fraction of water vapor (H2O) of the It can be concluded that the mathematical and physical models
airflow in the wind tower, this increases highly after water injection and the computer program developed in this study can be treated
to air. as a tool for the design and performance evaluation of cooling
tower (Baud-Geer).
5. Conclusion
Fig. 17. The variation of mass fraction of water vapor of airflow from entering to
Fig. 15. The variation of velocity of airflow from entering to exiting. exiting.
254 V. Kalantar / Renewable Energy 34 (2009) 246–254
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