A study of a wind catcher assisted adsorption cooling channel for natural cooling of a 2-storey building

This study proposes a new system composing of a wind catcher and a solar driven two-bed silica gel-water adsorption chiller in order to provide natural cooling of a two-story building. The wind catcher provides the required ventilation, and the air flowing though the wind catcher is cooled by the cooling plates fed by the adsorption chiller. The performance of the system is studied theoretically under different ambient conditions such as wind velocity, solar radiation, air temperature and relative humidity. In addition, the influence of geometric parameters such as size of the apertures, wind catcher's height and dimensions of the cooling plates and the number of them are studied. Furthermore, the system's capability to provide thermal comfort in the living space is investigated. It is found that at lower ACH (air change per hour) values, inlet air's temperature and absolute humidity reduce more. In addition, with the rise of the cooling plates' length, the cooling effect increases. The results indicated that with the increase of ACH values, thermal comfort condition is achieved for larger cooling demands. Furthermore, the system was found to be able to cool the air between 10 and 20 degrees C under different ambient conditions. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.