Natural cooling of stand-alone houses using solar chimney and evaporative cooling cavity

In this study a low-energy-consumption technique to enhance passive cooling and natural ventilation in a solar house, using a system consisting of a Solar Chimney (SC) and an Evaporative Cooling Cavity (ECC) has been proposed. The capability of the system to meet the required thermal needs of individuals and the effects of main geometric parameters on the system performance has been studied. The dependence of the system performance on outdoor air temperature has been studied to determine the operative conditions for appropriate effectiveness, regarding thermal comfort criteria. To determine the heat and mass transfer characteristics of the system, a mathematical model based on conservation equations of mass and energy has been developed and solved by an iterative method. The findings show that the system is capable of providing good indoor air condition at daytime in a living room, even with poor solar intensity of 200 W/m(2). The results show that when the relative humidity is lower than 50%, the system can make good indoor air condition even at 40 degrees C, and a higher performance is achieved using ECC with cocurrent configuration. It is found that the proposed system may be applied successfully in hot arid climates to fulfill the indoor thermal comfort expectations. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.