Performance analysis of an earth-to-air heat exchanger assisted by a wind tower for passive cooling of buildings in arid and hot climate

In this paper, a new design of passive cooling system which consists in an Earth-to-Air Heat Exchanger (EAHE) assisted by a wind tower is presented. This system is intended for the summer cooling in hot and arid regions of Algeria. A transient analytical model was developed in order to investigate the influence of design parameters on the performance of the EAHE. The model of the EAHE is validated against both theoretical and experimental data carried out by other authors. Since it is well-known that the performance of the EAHE systems is more influenced by the air flow velocity, another model was presented to predict the air velocity inside the buried pipe. Moreover, a burying depth of 2 m was adopted and the period under consideration is July where the ambient temperature exceeds 45 degrees C. This study was also extended to examine the behaviour of system during the whole year. In addition, a sensitivity survey was curried out to investigate the influence of tower and pipe dimensions on the air flow velocity and the performances of the EAHE. Results showed that the wind tower dimensions (height, cross section) have not an important impact compared to the pipe dimensions (length, diameter). It is found that a tower with a total height of 5.1 m and a cross section area of 0.57 m(2) can generate an air flow rate of 592.61 m(3)/h. Furthermore, it has been also observed that the daily cooling potential reached a maximum of 30.7 kWh corresponding to a pipe length of 70 m. The cooling effectiveness of the system is compared to that of traditional passive cooling system consisting in a wind tower with wet surfaces. The results indicated that the ambient air after passing through the wind tower coupled to the EAHE is colder than of that of the leaving the conventional cooling tower. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.