Renewable Energy 35 (2010) 2316e2324

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Renewable Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/renene

Passive cooling of buildings by using integrated earth to air heat exchanger

and solar chimney
M. Maerefat*, A.P. Haghighi
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, 14115-143, Iran

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 26 August 2009
Accepted 3 March 2010
Available online 26 March 2010

Passive cooling is being employed as a low-energy consuming technique to remove undesirable interior
heat from a building in the hot seasons. There are numerous ways to promote this cooling technique, and
in the present study the use of solar chimney (SC) together with earth to air heat exchanger (EAHE) is
introduced. Consequently, theoretical analyses have been conducted in order to investigate the cooling
and ventilation in a solar house through combined solar chimney and underground air channel. The
nding shows that the solar chimney can be perfectly used to power the underground cooling system
during the daytime, without any need to electricity. Moreover, this system with a proper design may also
provide a thermally comfortable indoor environment for a large number of hours in the scorching
summer days. Based on the required indoor thermal comfort conditions, the numbers of required SCs
and EAHEs are calculated and some features of such a system is presented. It is widely expected that the
proposed concept is useful enough to be incorporated with a stand-alone or a cluster of buildings
especially in some favorable climates.
2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Passive cooling
Earth to air heat exchanger
Solar chimney

1. Introduction
Environmental comfort, economy, and energy conservation are
some of the major functional considerations in the buildings. So far
as institutional, commercial, and residential buildings are concerned, electrical air-conditioning systems are mainly employed for
the health and comfort of the occupants. As matter of fact, the
demand for air-conditioners is growing yearly. However, with the
increasing cost, diminishing supply of nonrenewable energy and
environmental reasons there began a tremendous surge of interest
and research in solar and passive systems since the 1970s. The use
of passive cooling techniques combined with a reduced cooling
load may not only result in a good thermal summer comfort but
they save cooling energy consumption, too. Here, the two interesting and promising passive cooling techniques are: natural day
ventilation and earth to air heat exchangers. Natural ventilation is
usually employed in a region with mild climate and in spaces where
a little variation in indoor climate is tolerable. A solar chimney on
the other hand, is a good conguration to implement natural
ventilation in buildings where solar energy is available.

* Corresponding author. Tel.: 98 21 8288 3360; fax: 98 21 8288 3381.

Mob: 98 9123024381.
E-mail address: maerefat@modares.ac.ir (M. Maerefat).
0960-1481/$ e see front matter 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.renene.2010.03.003

In the past decade, solar chimneys had attracted much attention

of investigators and researchers. As a matter of fact, Bansal et al.
analytically studied a solar chimney-assisted wind tower for
natural ventilation in buildings [1]. The estimated effect of the solar
chimney was shown to be substantial in inducing natural ventilation for low wind speeds. Gan and Riffat also investigated solarassisted natural ventilation with heat-pipe heat recovery in naturally ventilated buildings, using a CFD technique [2]. Hamdy and
Fikry examined the optimum tilt angle of solar chimney system that
compromises between solar heat gain factor and stack high to
insure the best ventilation performance. They also showed that the
air ow rate through roof solar chimney increases if the height
between inlet and outlet is increased [3]. Khedari et al. experimentally investigated the feasibility of a solar chimney to reduce
heat gain in a house and the effect of openings on the ventilation
rate. The results showed that when the solar chimney was in use,
room temperature was near that of the ambient air, indicating
a good ability of the solar chimney to reduce houses heat gain and
ensuring thermal comfort. Opening a window or a door is less
efcient than using solar chimneys [4]. Mathur et al. analytically
studied the effect of inclination of absorber on the air ow rate in
a solar induced ventilation system using roof solar chimney. The
results showed that optimum absorber inclination varies from 40

to 60
depending upon the latitude of the location [5]. Bassiouny
and Koura analytically and numerically studied the solar chimney
for improving room natural ventilation. They found that the

M. Maerefat, A.P. Haghighi / Renewable Energy 35 (2010) 2316e2324

chimney width has a more signicant effect on ACH compared to

the chimney inlet size [6].
The earth to air heat exchanger is applicable for improving
natural ventilation through a cooling effect, which can also
contribute to decrease temperature in the building. The earth to air
heat exchanger is a pipe buried in the ground through which air is
sucked into a building. Since the ground exhibits high thermal
inertia, temperature at a certain depth is almost constant
throughout the year, which allows for its use either as a heat sink
(in summer) or a heat source (in winter) [7]. In the summer, soil
temperature of a hot and arid region at a few meters deep is lower
than the mean daily outdoor air temperature, and signicantly
lower than the usual outdoor daytime air temperature. So, it can be
used as a heat sink to cool the exterior warm air [8]. The proper
designing of the earth to air heat exchanger requires deeper
understanding of the heat and moisture dynamics in the earth to air
heat exchanger. Various analytical and numerical models have
contributed to investigate the thermal behavior and cooling or
preheating potential of EAHE [9e12].
Krarti and Kreider [9] developed a simplied analytical model to
determine the energy performance of an underground air tunnel.
The model assumed that the air tunnel-ground system reaches
periodic and quasi-steady state behavior after some days of operation. Also, parametric analysis was conducted to determine the
effect of tunnel hydraulic diameter and air ow rate on the heat
transfer between ground and air inside the tunnel. Hollmuller [10]
considered a periodic input for the air in the buried pipe, yielding
a physical interpretation of the amplitude-dampening and the
phase-shifting of the periodic input signal. Al-Ajmi et al. [11]
developed a theoretical model of an eartheair heat exchanger for
predicting the outlet air temperature and cooling potential of these
devices in a hot, arid climate. The results showed that the EAHE
have the potential for reducing cooling energy demand in a typical
house by 30% over the peak summer season. Kumar et al. [12] used
the concept of articial neural network and goal oriented design to
propose a computer design tool that can help the designer to

2317

evaluate any aspect of earth to air heat exchanger and behavior of

the nal conguration. The results showed that there are six variables inuencing the thermal performance of the earth to air heat
exchangers. These variables are: length, humidity, ambient air
temperature, ground surface temperature, ground temperature at
burial depth, and air mass ow rate.
The technique for passive cooling that is introduced and investigated in the present paper, is integrated earth to air heat
exchanger and solar chimney (EAHE-SC) system. A schematic plan
of the passively cooled room is shown in Fig. 1. This system realizes
both cooling and ventilation during daytime with the help of solar
energy, thus it is natural day ventilating technique.
The proposed solar system consists of two parts: the solar
chimney, and the earth to air heat exchanger. The solar chimney
consisted of a glass surface oriented to the south and an absorber
wall that works as a capturing surface. The air is heated up in the SC
by the solar energy, and ows upward because of the stack effect. It
causes driving force which sucks the outside air through the cooling pipe.
The EAHE consists of horizontal long pipes that are buried under
the bare surface at the specic depth. The pipes are spread under
the ground in a parallel manner. The pipe spacing is considered
more than the thickness of the heat penetrating depth to increase
the heat exchange between the soil and the air.
It will be shown this system can provide good indoor condition
in accordance with the Adapted Comfort Standard (ACS) specied
for thermal comfort in naturally ventilated buildings. The required
indoor temperatures according to the adaptive comfort model are
shown in Fig. 2. The gure only shows the acceptable temperature
of indoor air when the outdoor temperature is within the range of
0e40
C and it does not recommend the ventilation rate [13].
Ventilation standards require a minimum of 3 air changes per
hour for residential buildings in India [14]. Therefore, the minimum
ventilation rate is set approximately around 3 ACH. It will be
consequently shown that how this ventilation rate suitably
provides the required cooling loads of a room.

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of integrated earth to air heat exchanger and solar chimney.

2318

M. Maerefat, A.P. Haghighi / Renewable Energy 35 (2010) 2316e2324

Fig. 2. Adaptive standard for naturally ventilated buildings.

Fig. 4. Cross section of an EAHE with heat penetration depth.

2. Modeling the system

The modeling includes models of solar chimney (Fig. 3) and earth
to air heat exchanger (Fig. 4). In estimating the ventilation rate of the
proposed solar house as a whole, it is important to determine the air
ow rate which can be handled under a particular design and
operating conditions. For this, an overall energy balance on the
chimney is considered. This includes the energy balances of glass
cover wall, the black absorber wall, and the air in between. Writing
energy balance equations for absorber surface, glass surface and air
column and solving them for Tg, Tabs and Tf to calculate air ow rate
have sought a mathematical solution. Chimney modeling has been
done in accordance with Ong model [15].
The EAHE system presented in this paper is modeled as two
coupled heat transfer processes, namely, convection heat transfer
between air owing in the pipe and the pipe inner surface, and
conduction heat transfer between the pipe inner surface and the
surrounding soil.

The major assumptions that are used in the modeling may be

summarized as follows:
1. Air inlet to the chimney is considered to have the same room
air average temperature.
2. Only buoyancy force is considered, wind induced natural
ventilation is not included.
3. The ows in the channels are hydrodynamically and thermally
fully developed.
4. The glass cover is opaque for infrared radiation.
5. Thermal capacities of glass and absorber wall are negligible.
6. The air ow in the channel is radiative non-participating
media.
7. All thermophysical properties are constant evaluated at an
average temperature.
8. The soil is homogeneous and the soil type does not change
along the channel.
9. The system is at steady-state condition.
2.1. Mathematical modeling of solar chimney
An element of the model for SC is shown in Fig. 3. In principle
and based on the energy conservation law, a set of differential
equations are obtained along the length of SC. The energy balance
equation for glass cover is:






Sg Ag hrabsg Aabs Tabs  Tg hg Ag Tg  Tfsc


Uga Ag Tg  Tfsc

(1)

The overall top heat loss coefcient from glass cover to ambient
air Uga, can be written as:

Uga hwind hrgsky hga

(2)

The convective heat transfer coefcient due to the wind hwind is

given by [16].

hwind 2:8 3:0uwind

(3)

The solar radiation heat ux absorbed by the glass cover Sg is

given by:
Fig. 3. Schematic diagram of the heat transfer in the solar chimney.

Sg ag I

(4)

M. Maerefat, A.P. Haghighi / Renewable Energy 35 (2010) 2316e2324

2319

The radiative heat transfer coefcient from the outer glass

surface to the sky referred to the ambient temperature is obtained
from [15]:

hrgsky

s3g Tg Tsky



2
Tg2 Tsky



Tg  Ta



Tg  Tsky


(5)

Where, the sky temperature is Tsky 0.0552Ta1.5[16].

The radiation heat transfer coefcient between absorber plate
and glass cover may be obtained from [15]:

hrabsg



2
s Tg2 Tabs
Tg Tabs

Fig. 5. Thermal resistance between air ow and surrounding undisturbed soil.


1=3g 1=3abs  1

(6)

The convective heat transfer coefcient between the glass cover

and air ow in the chimney:

hg Nug kfsc =Lg

(7)

a periodic temperature. It depends on the soil diffusivity and the

temperature cycle frequency through equation (13) [10]:

r
2ls

0.2

Where, Nusselt number, Nug 0.6(Grgcos qPrfsc) , Grashof

number, Grg (gbSg(Lg)4/(kfscn2fsc)) [5]. The convective heat transfer
coefcient between inclined absorber wall and the air ow in the
chimney is given by:

habs Nuabs kfsc =Lsc

(8)
0.2

Where, Nusselt number, Nuabs 0.6(Grabscos qPrfsc) and Grashof

number Grabs (gbSabs(Labs)4/(kfscn2fsc)). All property values are
evaluated at average surfaceeair temperatures.
The energy balance equation for air ow in the chimney is:

habs Aabs Tabs  Tfsc




.
g
hg Ag Tg  Tfsc mCfsc Tfsc  Tr
(9)

The axial mean air temperature was experimentally determined

to follow the non-linear form [15]:

Tfsc gTfsco 1  gTfscin

(10)

Value of the constant g is taken as 0.74 according to Ref. [17]. The

energy balance equation for the absorber plate is written as:






Sabs Aabs habs Aabs Tabs  Tfsc hrabsg Aabs Tabs  Tg
Uabsa Aabs Tabs  Ta

The overall heat transfer coefcient from the rear of the

absorber wall to the ambient Uabsa is given by:

Uabsa 1=1=ha tins =kins

Where ls ks/(rsCs), for daily variation u (2p/day) and for annual

u (2p/(year)). The penetration depths are used to calculate the
thermal resistance only, and the rest of the analysis is carried out at
steady-state condition. The model includes two equations: one is
related to the energy balance of the circulating uid and the other
equation describes heat transfer in the soil region.
The energy balance for dx, a differential length of EAHE can be
expressed in the following form:

Tft  Tsu dQ

(12)

In the above equation ha has been taken as 2.8 W/m2 K [16].

2.2. Mathematical modeling of EAHE
In order to determine the system cooling capability, one is mainly
interested in the cool air temperature supplied by the EAHE.
Therefore, detailed modeling of the EAHE is required. The cross
section of EAHE used in the model and the thermal network of the
system are shown in Figs. 4 and 5, respectively. In order to impose the
ground thermal loads as boundary conditions at the EAHE wall, the
undisturbed soil temperature (Tsu) has been used. The soil temperature is nearly constant at the penetration depth (Fig. 1). The penetration depth is dened when the surface of the soil is subjected to

Rtotal
dx

(14)

Where Rtotal represents the overall thermal resistance which can

be dened by the resistance network as shown in Fig. 5:

Rtotal Rc Rt Rs

(15)

Where Rc is the thermal resistance due to convection heat

transfer between air in the pipe and the pipe inner surface. It may
be expressed as:

Rc
(11)

(13)

1
2pLt hft

(16)

The convection heat transfer coefcient inside the pipe is

dened by:

hft

Nut kft
2rti

(17)

The Nusselt number for air ow in pipe with smooth internal

surface depends on Reynolds number and it is given by [18]:

Nu 3:66
Nu

if Re < 2300

x=8Re  1000Pr
 if 2300  Re < 5  106
p
1 12:7 x=8 Pr2=3  1

(18.a)

(18.b)

Where:

x 1:82log Re  1:642 if Re  2300

(19)

Rt, is the thermal resistance of the pipe. Steady-state analysis gives

the thermal resistance of the pipe annulus as:

2320

M. Maerefat, A.P. Haghighi / Renewable Energy 35 (2010) 2316e2324


r tt
2pkt Lt
Rt ln ti
rti


(20)

Rs, is the thermal resistance between EAHE and undisturbed soil

surface, it is given by:

0
s1

2
d
d
1
@
1
Rs
ln 1

1A
rti tt
rti tt
2pks Lt

(23)

Tft x Tsu Ta  Tsu exp

x

mCft Rtotal

0
1
7

X
Lsc A
@

rfa  rfsco gLsc sin q 
cj xsc 
dhyd
j6
sc
!
rfsco u2sc

2

The air mass ow rate at the chimney and EAHE are the same if
there is no air inltration:

m rAujChimney outlet rAujChimney inlet rAujEAHE

r
Bouyancy Terms
Friction Terms

Bouyancy Terms 2

(31)

(32-a)

25



rfa  rfsco gLsc Sinq



 rfscin  rfr gHrinscin



 rft  rfr gHtr

(32-b)


2
o
n
sco
r
r
c7 xsc d Lsc
Friction Terms c6 rrfscoAAscin
fr
fr
hyd)sc fsco
(
!
2

5
P
Asco
rft
cj xt Lt Htr Burriedd depth of EAHE rfsco
r At
t

j1

ft

(32-c)
The main criteria for thermal comfort condition are affected by two
factors: the ACH and room air temperature. The ACH is calculated
under steady-state conditions by the following equation [5]:

ACH

3600m
rfsc V

(33)

The room air temperature which depends on room heat gain is

obtained by the following equation:

Tr Tftot

Where the cj is the pressure loss coefcients at the locations which

are indicated in Fig. 1.
In right hand side of equation (25), the rst clause is the chimney
theoretical draft, and the second one is the chimney pressure loss.
The EAHE pressure loss DPEAHE is [20]:

j1

(30)

Where:

LEAHE A rft u2ft

dti
2

DraftSystem Draftsc

usc

Chimney effect causes the movement of air into and out of

buildings and is driven by buoyancy. Buoyancy occurs due to
a difference in indoor-to-outdoor air density resulting from
temperature and moisture differences. A chimney heated by solar
energy can be used to drive the chimney effect without increasing
room temperature. The driving potential for the air ow through
the solar house is function of the pressure difference between the
inlet of the EAHE and the SC outlet. The buoyancy pressure due to
increasing air temperature in SC, sucks the cooled and heavy air
through the EAHE. The friction losses due to uid ow through the
channels and across the ttings, refrain from the uid ow. If the
buoyancy pressure overcomes the sum of all ow pressure losses,
the natural ventilation may take place.
A mathematical model based on Bernoullis equation has been
used to estimate the system ow rate. Thus, the chimney net draft
Draftsccan be calculated by the following equation [19]:

(29)

Under steady-state conditions, we can write:

(24)

2.3. Room ventilation and temperature

cj xt

(28)

By expanding equation (30) and use of equation (31), the air

velocity in the SC can be obtained as:

The solution of equation (23) can be expressed as:

5
X

rfscin  rfr gHrinscin

The required draft for cooling system DraftSystem is the sum of the
pipe pressure loss and the negative pressure DraftEAHE and
DraftRoom.

(22)

8
>
Tft
< dTft
0:0

dx
mCft Rtotal
>
: T T x 0:0
a
ft

DPEAHE @

(27)

DraftSystem DPEAHE  DraftEAHE DraftRoom

dTft
dx
dx

rfr  rft gHtr

(21)

Eqs. (14) and (22) give the differential overall energy balance
equation in the form:

Draftsc

DraftEAHE
DraftRoom

The energy balance of the circulating uid is given by:

dQ mCf

temperature at the pipe outlet. So the chimney effects DraftEAHE

and DraftRoom can be expressed as:

Qr
mCft

(34)

Where Qr is sum of the heats that the room gains through the walls
and the heat generated by internal heat sources.
3. Analysis

!
(26)

The air temperature variation in the vertical pipe is ignored. The air
temperature at the solar chimney inlet is assumed to be same as the
room air temperature which is higher than the cooled air

The system capability to provide the desired indoor condition

depends on parameters such as the ambient conditions (temperature, solar radiation), dimensions of SC and EAHE, and cooling
demand. Parametric study is carried out to nd the effects of
geometrical dimensions of the SC and EAHE and outdoor environmental conditions. The following dimensions and specications

M. Maerefat, A.P. Haghighi / Renewable Energy 35 (2010) 2316e2324

2321

Table 1
Thermophysical properties.
Parameters

Values

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.

0.84 (d)
0.06 (d)
0.90 (d)
0.95 (d)
0.95 (d)
0.23 (W/m K)
2050 (kg/m3)
0.52 (W/m K)
1840 (J/kg K)

Transmissivity of glass
Absorptivity of glass
Emissivity of the glass
Absorptivity of absorber wall
Emissivity of the absorber wall
Thermal conductivity of the pipe (PVC)
Soil density
Thermal conductivity of the Soil
Specic heat of soil

are used in the modeling. The room, 4.0  4.0  3.125 m in

dimensions, without air inltration and has a minimum cooling
demand of Q 116 W. This is the demand of a room with adiabatic
walls which one person is resting in it. The cooling demand is
changed at the range of 116e1500 W in the calculations.
A solar chimney with the length of 4.0 m, width of 1.0 m, air gap
depth of 0.3 m and inlet of 0.4  0.4 m is considered. These
dimensions are chosen based on studies of Ref. [22] and may be
changed in the calculation. A detailed study on a south facing solar
chimney in Tehran, having 35.44
N latitude position, has found the
optimum angle of 50
to capture more radiation [5]. Few numbers
of solar chimneys are adequate to provide the required stack effect
for the system.
The cooling pipe of EAHE is a PVC pipe with 25.0 m length,
0.01 m thickness, and inside diameter of 0.5 m and is buried 3.0 m
below the soil surface. According to the model developed by Bansal
et al. [21] undisturbed soil temperature at a depth of 3.0 m is
approximated to be 19
C for a dry shaded soil surface condition
and it is considered to be the heat sink temperature. These
dimensions have a decisive inuence on cooling load and system
performance which will be investigated here. Usually only one
EAHE sufces to provide the necessary cooling load, but in sever hot
conditions more cooling pipes may be employed.
The EAHE outlet and the SC inlet are located on the opposite
walls (Fig. 2). The SC inlet is lowered 0.7 m below the EAHE outlet
level. The EAHE outlet is 3 m above the room oor, thus it is 6 m
above the buried horizontal pipes of the EAHE. The ambient
outdoor temperature is 34
C. The thermophysical properties of the
materials included in the modeling are given in Table 1. The values
of the properties specied in the table are kept constant in the
computation unless specically noted otherwise.
A computer program was written in MATLAB software to solve
the mathematical model. The governing equations (1, 9, 11, 24 and
32) have to be solved iteratively until convergence of the results.
There is no experimental data to validate the results of theoretical model for the integrated system. So, the calculation has been
carried out for SC and EAHE separately under same conditions of

Fig. 6. Comparison present results with experimental data.

experimental studies of [22] and [23] to check the mathematical

model and to ensure the accuracy of computations.
Table 2 shows the results of present model and the theoretical
and experimental results of Mathur et al. [22] for different combinations of solar radiation, SC height and chimney inlet dimensions.
The quantitative comparison shows a reasonable agreement
between the results obtained by the present study and the published results of [22]. The results of present study are closer to the
experimental results than the theoretical results of Ref. [22]. It
should be noted that the calculation carried out at the same
conditions of Ref. [22] in which the room volume is 27 m3 and other
experimental conditions are given in Table 2.
Fig. 6 shows the air temperature variation along the cooling
pipe. The results of the present work are calculated at the conditions of experiments of Ref. [23] given in Table 3. As the gure
shows, there is good agreement between the present theoretical
results and the experimental results of Ref. [23].
However, it is reasonable to conclude that the mathematical
model can predict air temperature quite accurately and the calculated results are reliable.
4. Result and discussion
4.1. Capability of the system to provide thermal comfort
Theoretical calculations are performed at various solar radiations and room cooling demands. The results are summarized in
Table 4. It is found that an integrated system of a few number of
solar chimneys with one (or at most two) EAHE cooling pipe can

Table 2
Comparison of experimental and theoretical results for solar chimney induced ACH number.
Solar radiation
(W/m2)

Absorber
length (m)

Inlet chim. dimens.

(m  m)

Ambient
temp. (K)

ACH
EXP [22].

Theo [22].

Theo. (present study)

300

0.7
0.8
0.9

1.0  0.3
1.0  0.2
1.0  0.1

295e302
298e304
294e296

4.400
5.330
2.400

4.173
4.054
2.704

500

0.7
0.8
0.9

1.0  0.3
1.0  0.2
1.0  0.1

295e302
298e304
294e296

4.800
4.530
2.660

700

0.7
0.8
0.9

1.0  0.3
1.0  0.2
1.0  0.1

295e302
298e304
294e296

5.600
5.330
2.930

Errors of [22].

Errors of present
study

4.366
4.757
2.368

5.16%
23.94%
12.66%

0.77%
10.75%
1.33%

5.160
4.895
3.461

4.454
4.816
2.970

7.50%
8.06%
30.11%

7.21%
6.31%
11.65%

5.810
5.175
3.671

5.404
5.480
3.217

3.75%
2.91%
25.29%

3.5%
2.81%
9.79%

2322

M. Maerefat, A.P. Haghighi / Renewable Energy 35 (2010) 2316e2324

Table 3
Properties and conditions of experiment [23].

Table 5
Effects of absorber length on system performance.

1. Length of EAHE
2. Buried depth of EAHE
3. Radius of pipe
4. Thickness of pipe
5. Thermal conductivity of pipe
6. Thermal conductivity of soil
7. Thermal diffusivity of soil
8. Air velocity
9. Air density
10. Air viscosity
11. Specic heat of air
12. Air Prandtl number
13. Thermal conductivity of air

25.00 (m)
2.56 (m)
0.305 (m)
0.002 (m)
0.33 (W/m K)
1.16 (W/m K)
6.45  107 (m2/s)
1.47 (m/s)
1.214 (kg/m3)
178  107 (kg/s m)
1.205  103 (J/kg K)
0.65 (d)
0.28 (W/m K)

provide the indoor thermal comfort conditions, so the temperature

is retained at 28.15e31.94
C which is within the acceptable range
according to Ref. [14], with 3e7 ACH which secures the required
ventilation rate. As can be seen for higher cooling demands, longer
and more cooling pipes of the EAHE are required.
4.2. Effective dimensions of the system
There are many geometrical dimensions in the system that
affect its performance. Some of them such as dimensions of the
inlet of the SC, cross area of the SC, etc. have minor effects, these
inuence the ow rate slightly by changing the resistance to the
ow. While two geometrical dimensions have the substantial
effects: i) absorbing surface area of the SC, which provide the
energy for stack effect at the SC, ii) cooling surface area of the EAHE,
which facilitates heat removal from the air ow to soil.
In the present study, effects of variations of all dimensions are
investigated. Based on the obtained results, the dimensions
described in the section 3 have been chosen as suitable working
dimensions. The details of the results are not given in the present
paper to save time. However effects of changing the two efcacious
dimensions are reported here.
i) Absorber surface area is increased by increasing the length of
the chimney. This increase results in higher ventilation rate or
Table 4
Performance of the system at various cooling demands and solar radiations.
Cooling
Solar radiation Length of ACH Room air Number Number
EAHE (m) d
temp.
of SC
of EAHE
demand (W) (W/m2)
(
C)
116

400
600
800
1000

25

6.34
4.03
5.06
5.84

28.53
28.14
28.31
28.44

2
1
1
1

200

400
600
800
1000

25

6.30
3.56
4.81
5.65

29.35
28.73
29.35
29.33

2
1
1
1

400

400
600
800
1000

30

5.69
7.90
3.88
4.87

29.92
30.15
29.51
30.62

2
2
1
1

600

400
600
800
1000

40

4.67
7.21
3.09
4.00

28.27
30.42
27.77
29.02

2
2
1
1

400
600
800
1000

40

5.20
4.21
5.33
6.27

28.13
27.64
29.03
30.14

3
2
2
2

800

Note: Ambient air temperature 34
C.

Cooling
demand (W)

Absorber
length (m)

ACH
d

Room air
temp. (
C)

Number
of SC

Number
of EAHE

116

3.0
4.0
5.0
6.0

4.40
5.83
7.06
8.18

28.22
28.44
28.66
28.86

1
1
1
1

1
1
1
1

800

3.0
4.0
5.0
6.0

2.36
5.10
6.62
8.29

28.94
30.98
32.38
33.63

2
2
2
2

3
3
3
3

800

3.0
4.0
5.0
6.0

3.12
3.05
3.51
3.84

29.24
29.41
29.81
30.19

3
2
2
2

5
4
5
6

Note: Ambient air temperature 34
C, solar radiation 1000 (W/m2).

higher ACH number. On the other hand, higher ventilation

rate with a constant cooling source results in higher indoor
temperature. Thus more number of buried pipes are required
to cool the room and satisfy the thermal comfort requirements, as shown in Table 5.
ii) The lateral surface area of the buried pipe is serving as heat
exchange surface area of the heat sink of the system. Generally larger cooling area provides more cooling effect to the
system. In order to increase the cooling surface one may
increase the diameter and/or the length of the pipe. Table 6
shows the effect of EAHE length on system performance at
two different cooling demands. For the length of EAHE less
than 20 m, the comfort temperature may not be provided and
longer EAHE should be employed.
Results of the study on the diameter of cooling pipes are shown in
Table 7. A comparative survey shows that the required number of SCs
and EAHEs are minimums when the diameter is 0.5 m. Therefore,
this value is adopted as default value of diameter and the variation in
lateral area surfaces are made by increasing the length of the pipe.
4.3. Effects of environmental conditions on the system performance
The environmental conditions are comprised of solar radiation
and outdoor ambient temperature in the present study. Table 8
Table 6
Effects of length of EAHE on system performance.
Solar
radiation
(W/m2)

Length of ACH Room air Number Number

EAHE
of SC
of EAHE
d
temp.
(m)
(
C)

Cooling
demand
(W)

Ambient
air temp.
(
C)

116

40

400

15.0
25.0
35.0
45.0

3.47
6.02
5.17
5.79

29.68
29.72
27.00
28.61

4
3
3
3

10
2
2
1

116

40

1000

15.0
25.0
35.0
45.0

3.47
6.49
4.65
3.56

29.87
28.72
28.77
26.33

2
2
1
1

9
3
1
1

800

40

400

15.0

Thermal comfort cannot

provided.
3.14 29.00
3
4.54 29.50
3
4.27 27.00
3

be

Thermal comfort cannot

provided.
3.35 29.38
2
7.42 29.52
2
5.59 29.26
2

be

25.0
35.0
45.0
800

40

1000

15.0
25.0
35.0
45.0

5
2
2

6
3
2

M. Maerefat, A.P. Haghighi / Renewable Energy 35 (2010) 2316e2324

2323

Table 7
Effects of diameter of EAHE on system performance.
Diameter of
EAHE (m)

ACH
d

Room air
temp. (
C)

Number
of SC

Number
of EAHE

400

0.3
0.5
0.7
0.9

4.30
6.02
3.01
4.76

29.96
29.72
29.89
29.98

3
3
3
4

2
2
4
8

40

1000

0.3
0.5
0.7
0.9

5.07
6.49
8.67
7.85

27.70
28.72
29.96
29.80

3
2
2
2

2
3
4
8

40

400

0.3
0.5
0.7
0.9

Thermal comfort cannot be provided.

3.14
29.00
3
4.43
29.86
4
Thermal comfort cannot be provided.

5
7

0.3
0.5
0.7
0.9

Thermal comfort cannot be provided.

3.35
29.38
2
3.21
29.31
2
3.71
29.94
2

Cooling
demand (W)

Ambient
air temp. (
C)

116

40

116

800

800

Solar radiation
(W/m2)

40

1000

shows the summary of results of the theoretical calculations for

different environmental conditions.
The buoyancy driving force increases with an increase of solar
intensity and it causes higher ACH. Thus, less number of SCs are
required to drive the cool and heavy air through the EAHEs and to
compensate the pressure drops. The results of calculations also
show that the required number of EAHEs should be increased to
retain the thermal comfort condition when the number of ACH and
indoor air temperature are increased at high solar radiation.
The effect of ambient air temperature on stack effect of SC is vice
versa. The stack effect decreases when the ambient outdoor
Table 8
System performance at different indoor and outdoor conditions.

6
7
12

temperature rises. Under these conditions, more number of SCs will

be required to ventilate the room.
The results show that the system can provide the required
indoor temperature and ACH number even at harsh environmental
condition of high temperature of 45
C and low solar radiation of
100 W/m2. If the temperature is higher than 45
C, the SC wont be
able to provide the stack effect and in this condition, the use of
a small fan can help the cool air to ow from EAHE in to the room
and to realize thermal comfort condition.
It should be noted that in this system all air ow is fresh air, and
a reduction about 23
C in the inlet air is praiseful achievement of
the present passive cooling system.
5. Conclusions

Cooling
demand (W)

Ambient air
temp. (
C)

Solar
radiation
(W/m2)

ACH
d

Room air
temp. (
C)

Number
of SC

Number
of EAHE

500

40

100
500
900

3.28
5.16
4.83

29.61
31.13
31.40

5
3
2

3
3
3

500

45

100
500
900

3.01
4.30
4.02

30.92
31.12
31.27

6
3
2

4
4
4

500

50

100
500
900

3.05
3.45
3.06

31.02
31.62
31.52

6
3
2

6
5
5

1000

40

100
500
900

4.98
4.10
3.63

30.51
31.95
30.69

8
2
2

6
2
4

1000

45

100
500
900

4.15
3.27
3.00

30.00
31.15
30.90

8
3
2

6
5
5

1000

50

100
500
900

4.18
3.05
3.15

31.95
31.98
31.53

8
3
3

7
6
12

1500

40

100
500
900

5.20
3.29
3.00

31.36
30.61
30.35

8
3
2

4
5
5

1500

45

100
500
900

3.95
3.62
3.17

31.00
31.70
31.60

9
4
3

9
9
12

1500

50

100
500
900

Thermal comfort cannot be provided.

A passive solar system comprises of solar chimneys and earth to

air heat exchangers is proposed and studied in the present paper.
The present study shows that the performance of the system
depends on solar radiation, outdoor air temperature, as well as
conguration of both the SC and the EAHE.
The results showed that the number of required SCs decreases
with the use of taller SCs. The use of taller SCs lead to thermal
discomfort, therefore, more number of buried pipes should be
employed to cool air ow and satisfy the thermal needs.
Results of the study on diameter of EAHE show that there is an
optimum diameter for cooling pipes (0.5 m) which gives the
minimum required number of SCs and EAHEs. It has also been
found that the long EAHE with the length of more than 20 m should
be employed to provide the thermal comfort condition.
The results also show that when the ambient temperature and
cooling demand are high, although providing thermal comfort is
difcult, proper congurations could provide good indoor condition even in the poor solar intensity of 100 W/m2 and high ambient
air temperature of 50
C.
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Nomenclature
A: area
ACH: air change per hour (h1)
C: specic heat of air (J/kg K)
c: pressure loss coefcient of ttings
D: gap depth between absorber wall and glass (m)
d: diameter (m)
H: distance (m)
h: convective heat transfer coefcient (W/m2 K)
hr: radiative heat transfer coefcient (W/m2 K)

I: total incident solar radiation on south facing inclined surface (W/m2)

k: thermal conductivity (W/m K)
L: length (m)
m: mass ow rate of air (kg/s)
Q: heat transfer to air stream (W/m2)
R: thermal resistance (m2 K/W)
r: radius (m)
S: solar radiation heat ux absorbed by plate (W/m2)
T: temperature (K)
t: thickness (m)
U: overall heat transfer coefcient (W/m2 K)
u: air velocity (m/s)
V: volume of room (m3)
W: width of chimney (m)
x,y: coordinate system (m)
Z: height of chimney inlet (m)
Greek symbols

a: absorbtion coefcient
b: volumetric coefcient of expansion (K1)
g: constant in Eqs.(9) and,(10)
d: heat penetration depth (m)
3: emissivity
q: angle
l: thermal diffusivity (m2/s)
m: Dynamic viscosity (kg/s m)
n: Kinematic viscosity (m2/s)
x: friction factor
r: density (kg/m3)
s: SteffaneBoltzmann constant (5.67  108W/m2 K4)
u: frequency of temperature oscillation (rad/s)
Dimensionless terms
Nu: Nusselt number [hf L/mf]
Pr: Prandtl number [Cf mf/kf ]
Gr: Grashof number [gbf (T Tf)L3/n2]
Ra: Rayleigh number [GrPr]
Re: Reynolds number [ufdhyd/nf]
Subscripts
a: ambient
abs: absorber wall
c: convective
f: air ow
g: glass
hyd: hydraulic
i: internal
in: inlet
ins: insulation
j: index
o: outlet
r: radius, room
s: soil
sc: solar chimney
st: inner surface of tube
su: undisturbed soil
t: pipe