Effects of the top extension of the domain in CFD simulation of solar chimneys

Solar chimneys have been widely used for natural ventilation of buildings. It absorbs solar radiation to create stack effect to induce air flow for ventilation. To model air flow and heat transfer inside solar chimneys, numerical models based on Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) have been broadly employed. The size of the computational domain is one of the factors influencing computed results from CFD models. In this study, we investigated effects of the extension of the domain above the outlet of the air channel as the gap and the height of the air channel changes. Two types of the computational domains were studied. The small domain has identical physical size with a cavity inside the solar chimney while the large domain contains both the cavity and the ambient air surrounding the chimney. The induced flow rate and temperature rise of the chimney were computed and compared between those domains. It is seen that to ensure the changes of both flow rate and temperature below 1.0%, the required extension, h, of the domain above the outlet of the air channel is a function of the gap – to – height ratio G/H, not only the gap. Specifically, for G/H in the range of 0.1 – 0.4 in this study, the required h/G rises from 10 to 30.