Experimental Analysis of Impact of Solar Chimney on Ventilation Rate in a Building: Fid-Bau Portal

Experimental Analysis of Impact of Solar Chimney on Ventilation Rate in a Building

Raghuwanshi, Jitendra / Bartaria, Vishvendra Nath

The rapidly developing socio-economic conditions since last few decades are tremendously escalating the energy demand in all spheres of life. Accordingly, the energy needs in buildings have also increased significantly. The energy requirements are majorly fulfilled by the burning of fossil fuels. Huge energy consumption and burning of fuel are impacting environmental sustainability through global warming, climate change and changing weather conditions. Building energy use may be reduced by utilization of renewable energy sources such as solar energy. This paper presents the strategy for reducing building energy use through the application of solar energy in solar chimney to produce ventilation. The performance parameters and the concept of solar chimney have been discussed along with the estimation of flow. Analytical calculations using mathematical models are made. Experimental analysis on ventilation produced through solar chimney is also performed. The research facility at GWPC, Bhopal for carrying out this research work has been used with suitable modifications in instrumentation and flow arrangement for the determination of ventilation rate during winter sunny days. The experimental results are compared to those calculated from simple mathematical model. The ventilation rate as obtained from experiment varies between 0.2 to 0.4 m³/s. Mathematical calculations on the rate of ventilation show little variations of up to 10% value arising due to the assumptions made in the model formulation. The results are indicative of application of solar chimney in the establishment of ventilation in buildings. It also shows that this passive ventilation technique may reduce the use of conventional energy in buildings significantly and without affecting the indoor thermal environment.