Natural Convection Solar Chimney, Fluent Training

Description

 Natural Convection Solar Chimney Project Description

In this project, a solar chimney’s natural convection has been simulated by ANSYS Fluent software. The main goal of this project is the investigation of natural convection considering buoyancy force.  A solar chimney is a type of passive solar heating and cooling system that can be used to regulate the temperature of a building as well as provide ventilation. Like a Trombe wall or solar wall, solar chimneys are a way to achieve energy-efficient building design.  Essentially, solar chimneys are hollow containers that connect the inside part of the building to the outside part of the building.

The geometry of this project has been created using ANSYS Design Modeler software and its mesh has been created by ANSYS Meshing Software. This mesh type is structured and its cell numbers are equal to 510000.

This CFD project is the 2nd episode of the Heat Transfer Training Course.

Natural Convection Solar Chimney Methodology

The energy equation is enabled in this simulation to compute the temperature changes and simulate the heat transfer. The gravity effect has enabled us to consider the buoyancy force as an important force in natural convection. Also, we have considered an absorber for this chimney with a heat flux equal to 55 W/m^2.

Natural Convection Solar Chimney Results

After the solution was completed, the velocity, pressure, and temperature contours were obtained. Velocity vectors and flow lines were also drawn. The results clearly show that natural convection heat transfer has occurred in this problem. From the vectors and flow lines, it is clear that the buoyancy force showed its effect well and the dominant force in heat transfer was natural. Also, the mass flow rate at a height of 0.5 meters was obtained, which was equal to 0.128 kg/m3.