Thermal performance and ventilation analysis of a zigzag Trombe wall: Full numerical and experimental investigations

Solar energy building applications are gaining more attention due to their benefits in sustainable development, including energy conservation, cost reduction, and environmental protection. Present work proposed the zigzag Trombe wall, and its performance was investigated by on-site reduced-scale experiments and delicate CFD simulations, on a typical winter day in Wuhan, China. Unlike the traditional Trombe walls, our proposed zigzag Trombe wall has two sections, one of the sections comprises a southeast-facing window that provides both natural light and direct heat gain in the morning when promotion of heating efficiency is most needed; whereas the other consists of a southwest-facing Trombe wall with circulating vents that stores the afternoon sun's heat for redistribution during the relatively cold night hours. Here, fluid flow, heat distribution, and thermal comfort were introduced as key indices to investigate the performance of the zigzag Trombe wall around the whole typical day, regarding of the effects of the angle alpha and area ratio gamma between two sections. Simulation results of the zigzag Trombe wall were compared with that of the classical Trombe wall, and which showed that this new one could effectively distribute heat throughout the day, especially in the morning period. This paper provides theoretical support and optimization ideas for the design and operation of the novel zigzag Trombe wall through a combination of experimental and numerical simulation methods.