Evaluation of a two-sided windcatcher integrated with wing wall (as a new design) and comparison with a conventional windcatcher

Abstract

In buildings, 60% of energy consumption is associated to HVAC systems. One solution to reduce this share is the application of natural ventilation systems. Windcatcher and wing wall are two well-known techniques for natural ventilation which have been used in different regions. Nevertheless, in areas with low wind speed such as tropical climate of Malaysia there is hesitation for application of natural ventilation systems. The integration of windcatcher with wing wall can potentially enhance the ventilation performance. However, this configuration was not looked into by pervious investigations; thus, this study aims to address this gap of research by evaluating: first, the effect of wing wall angle on the ventilation performance; second, comparethe performance of this new design with a conventional windcatcher. This research had two main investigative steps: experimental scaled wind tunnel testing and CFD simulation. Four reduced-scale models of two-sided windcatcher were tested in a low speed wind tunnel. Three models were integrated with wing wall in 30°, 45° and 60° incident angles and the another windcatcher was a conventional two-sided windcatcher, which is typical in regions with predominant wind direction. The CFD validation against experiment showed a good agreement. The best operation was observed in the windcatcher with 30° wing wall angle which could supply 910 l/s fresh air into the room in 2.5 m/s wind speed. Hence, the new design had 50% more ventilation performance comparing with conventional two-sided windcatcher in the same external wind speed. Finally, it was concluded that this new design can satisfy requirements of ASHRAE 62.1.

Climatic analysis of a passive cooling technology for the built environment in hot countries

“…The review of current literature showed that significant research interest has been focused on a number of areas relating to the development of windcatcher technology [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][27][28][29][30] and its integration with cooling methods [23][24][25][26] such as heat pipes [15][16][17][18]. The research gaps that this study aims to address are the following; (1) There are limited studies on the experimental investigation of commercial windcatchers, particularly using field test method.…”

“…Several researchers [27][28][29][30] focused on the aerodynamics design and ventilation performance of wind towers and its components.…”

Advanced Strategies for Net-Zero Energy Building: Focused on the Early Phase and Usage Phase of a Building’s Life Cycle

“…(3) Natural ventilation: To implement nZEB, an architectural design for inducing the reduction of the building energy demand through the effective influx of the outdoor air (i.e., natural ventilation) should be considered in the initial design stage. Generally, natural ventilation can be categorized based on two mechanisms: (i) buoyancy-driven ventilation by the vertical and horizontal temperature difference; and (ii) wind-driven ventilation by the pressure difference between the front and the back of the building (refer to Table 3) [29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38]. First, there are various previous studies related to buoyancy-driven ventilation [29][30][31][32][33][34].…”

“…As a result, the ventilation performance of the wind-catcher with a 30 • wing wall angle was superior to the other designs (45 • and 60 • ). Also, the ventilation performance of the new design was improved by 50% compared to the conventional wind catcher [37]. Mei et al (2017) analyzed the ventilation performance according to the building density level in an urban residential neighborhood using the CFD software program.…”

“…The dimensionless charts that can determine the combination of design variables were developed as a guideline for realizing natural a ventilated building [30]. Second, there are various previous studies related to wind-driven ventilation [35][36][37][38]. conducted a comparative analysis of the wind-catcher-integrated wing wall (i.e., new design) and the conventional wind catcher via the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software program and wind tunnel testing.…”