Performance Assessment Of Solar Chimney Coupled With Earth-To-Air Heat Exchanger: A Passive Alternative For An Indoor Swimming Pool Ventilation In Hot-Arid Climate

Due to the 40% share of buildings in global energy consumption, shifting to energy-efficient methods in this sector can significantly decelerate energy crisis, global warming, and their consequences. Hot-arid climate regions annually receive a significant amount of solar energy, which can be used as a substitute for fossil fuel-based sources in ventilation systems. In this paper, the potential of a typical public indoor swimming pool to harness solar energy is assessed by generating separate models based on the present active ventilation system and a proposed passive one. The passive system consists of a solar chimney coupled with an earth-to-air heat exchanger. CFD analysis of flow and energy fields, validated with field measurements, is carried out through numerical simulations using the SIMPLE algorithm and solar ray tracing module on the design days of May to September 2019 based on weather data. The distribution of key parameters; including temperature, velocity, humidity, and CHCl3 concentration; is studied. The passive system generally outperforms the active one in terms of removing airborne contaminants and excess moisture while saving energy. On the most critical design day, more than 45% of temperature data, 78% of velocity data, 93% of relative humidity data, and 100% of CHCl3 mass fraction data lay in the standard ranges. Also, mass fractions of chloroform and water vapor averagely decreased by 60% and 11% in the breathing zone, still in the standard range of the relative humidity, and air changes per hour increased up to 174%.