The Study of a New Design of Wind Tower with Wetted Surfacesfor the Passive Cooling of Buildings

wind towers or wind catchers are thin and tall towers with different cross-sections. They have been used for the natural ventilation and passive cooling of buildings in the hot arid regions of Iran. To overcome the defects and disadvantages associated with the conventional wind towers, an optimized design of wind tower called wind tower with wetted surfaces is presented. This new design of wind tower is equipped with wetted evaporative cooling pads mounted at its entrance. In this study, the new design of wind tower was tested side by side with a conventional wind tower. We could find from both experimental and numerical results that the air leaving the wind tower with wetted surfaces was much cooler and its relative humidity was much higher in comparison with the air entering the building from the conventional wind tower. It also was found that the tower with wetted surfaces performs better with low wind speeds. Furthermore, the experimental results and the results obtained numerically were in good agreement and the little deviations could be negligible. Finally. this new design of wind tower can replace the evaporative coolers currently employed in Iran, and other hot arid regions, with considerable saving in electrical energy consumption.

Keywords:

wind tower , natural ventilation , passive cooling , wetted surfaces , building , energy saving