Abstract

Performance of four-sided wind catcher was investigated by numerical method. Wind catcher is one of the vernacular elements which are widely used in hot, hot-dry and hot-humid climates especially in Middle East countries. They are tall towers on the building’s roof top with several vents to catcher wind for cooling the interior spaces. In this study six 3D rectangular wind catchers with different channel height were employed based on the review of the wind towers' characteristics with emphasis on their morphology and categorization of the wind towers based on their physical attributes and parameters. In this study also CFD simulations were accomplished to evaluate the effect of height on ventilation rate of wind catcher room. It was found that the height of wind catcher influence the ventilation rate, wind velocity and volume flow rate on different opening of the wind catcher. Generally, wind velocity on windward increased and ventilation rate of room decreased by increasing the wind catcher height.

Keywords:

Fluent software, natural ventilation system, wind catcher, wind tower,

References

1. Awbi, H. and A. Elmualim, 2002. Full scale model Windcatcher performance evaluation using a wind tunnel. Proceedings of the World Renewable Energy Congress VII, Elsvier Science Ltd., Cologne, Germany.
   
2. Bahadori, M.N., 1985. An improved design of wind towers for natural ventilation and passive cooling. Solar Energ., 35(2): 119-129.
   CrossRef    
3. Bahadori, M.N., 1994. Viability of wind towers in achieving summer comfort in the hot arid regions of the Middle East. Renew. Energ., 5(5-8): 879-892.
   CrossRef    
4. Beazley, E., M. Harverson, et al., 1982. Living with the Desert: Working buildings of the Iranian Plateau. Aris and Phillips, Warminster, Wilts, England.
   PMCid:PMC1353000    
5. Casey, M. and T. Wintergerste, 2000. Best Practices Guidelines. ERCOFTAC Special Interest Group on Quality and Trust in Industrial CFD, ERCOFTAC, Brussels.
   
6. Elmualim, A.A., 2006. Dynamic modelling of a wind catcher/tower turret for natural ventilation. Build. Serv. Eng. Res. Technol., 27(3): 165-182.
   CrossRef    
7. Elmualim, A.A. and H.B. Awbi, 2002. Wind tunnel and CFD investigation of the performance of wind catcher ventilation systems. Int. J. Ventilat., 1(1): 53-64.
   CrossRef    
8. Franke, J., C. Hirsch, A.G. Jensen, H.W. Krüs, M. Schatzmann, P.S. Westbury, S.D. Miles, J.A. Wisse and N.G. Wright, 2004. Recommendations on the use of CFD in wind engineering. Proceedings of the International Conference on Urban Wind Engineering and Building Aerodynamics, COST Action C14, Impact of Wind and Storm on City Life Built Environment Von Karman Institute, Sint-Genesius-Rode Belgium.
   
9. Jones, B.M. and R. Kirby, 2009. Quantifying the performance of a top-down natural ventilation Windcatcher (TM). Build. Environ., 44(9): 1925-1934.
   CrossRef    
10. Li, L. and C. Mak, 2007. The assessment of the performance of a windcatcher system using computational fluid dynamics. Build. Environ., 42(3): 1135-1141.
    CrossRef    
11. Mahmoudi, M. and S.M. Mofidi, 2011. Investigation of architecture of wind tower's plan on the environmental temperature reduction. J. Environ. Sci. Technol., 13(1 (48): 83-91.
    
12. Mahyari, A., 1996. The wind catcher: A passive cooling device for hot arid climate. Ph.D. Thesis, Universityof Syndey, Syndey.
    
13. Montazeri, H., 2011. Experimental and numerical study on natural ventilation performance of various multi-opening wind catchers. Build. Environ., 46(2): 370-378.
    CrossRef    
14. Montazeri, H. and R. Azizian, 2008. Experimental study on natural ventilation performance of one-sided wind catcher. Build. Environ., 43(12): 2193-2202.
    CrossRef    
15. Montazeri, H., F. Montazeri, R. Azizian and S. Mostafavi, 2010. Two-sided wind catcher performance evaluation using experimental, numerical and analytical modeling. Renew. Energ., 35(7): 1424-1435.
    CrossRef    
16. Parker, J. and A. Teekeram, 2004. Design and Application Guide for Roof Mounted Natural Ventilation Systems. BSRIA, UK.
    
17. Roaf, S., 1982. Wind Catchers. In: Beazley, E. (Ed.), Living With the Desert. Air and Philips, England.
    
18. Saadatian, O., L.C. Haw, K. Sopian and M.Y. Sulaiman, 2012. Review of windcatcher technologies. Renew. Sustain. Energ. Rev., 16(3): 1477-1495.
    CrossRef    
19. Tominaga, Y., A. Mochida, R. Yoshie, H. Kataoka, T. Nozu, M. Yoshikawa and T. Shirasawa, 2008. AIJ guidelines for practical applications of CFD to pedestrian wind environment around buildings. J. Wind Eng. Ind. Aerodyn., 96(10): 1749-1761.
    CrossRef    

Competing interests

The authors have no competing interests.

Open Access Policy

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

Copyright

The authors have no competing interests.