Numerical investigation of the integration of heat transfer devices into a wind tower

Increasing focus on reducing energy consumption has raised public awareness of renewable energy resources, particularly the integration of natural ventilation devices in buildings such as wind tower systems. Wind towers have traditionally been used in Middle Eastern architecture for many centuries to provide natural ventilation and thermal comfort. The purpose of this study is to integrate heat transfer devices in a wind tower to meet the internal comfort criteria in extreme external condtions. Heat transfer devices were installed inside the passive terminal of the wind tower unit, highlighting the potential to achieve minimal restriction in the external air flow stream while ensuring maximum contact time, thus optimzing the cooling duty of the device. A geometrical representation of a full scale wind tower configuration, micro-climate and macro-climate was modeled. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) was used to develop a numerical model of a new wind tower system and simulate the air flow pattern and pressure coefficients around and through the wind tower to the test room. Results have indicated that the average internal airflow rate was reduced following the integration of the vertical and horizontal heat transfer device configuration, reductions of 4.11 % and 8.21 % was obtained from the achieved numerical models. The work compared the effect of evaporative cooling and heat transfer devices on the thermal performance of the passive ventilation device. The proposed cooling system was capable of reducing the air temperatures by 12-15 K, depending on the configuration and operating conditions.