Natural Ventilation Performance of a One-sided Wind Catcher: Wind-tunnel and CFD Evaluation

摘要

The natural performance of wind catchers depends on a number of interrelated factors, such as tower height, number and type of openings, horizontal cross-section of tower, and the design of components that control air flow. CFD have been used in many occasions in the past to investigate the performance of wind-catchers. The vast majority of these studies, however, focused on four-sided wind-catchers. To the best of our knowledge, CFD evaluation of cross-ventilation for a one-sided wind-catcher has not yet been performed. This type of wind-catchers have been commonly used in regions with prevailing wind directions. This paper presents 3D steady RANS CFD simulations of air flow rate and internal surface pressure coefficients for a one-sided wind-catcher. The evaluation is based on a grid-sensitivity analysis and validation with wind-tunnel measurements. In addition, the impact of different turbulence models is investigated. The results show that one-sided wind-catchers are effective systems in providing natural ventilation. The best performance is achieved when the wind blows perpendicular to the opening. Moreover, steady RANS can accurately reproduce the induced air flow rate by the wind-catcher, with an average deviation of7.4% and the surface pressure coefficients, with an average absolute deviation of 0.06.