Numerical simulation on air flow and heat transfer inside solarwall

Abstract

In China, the severe cold region is vast in territory and its winter cold causes huge energy consumption in heating, while the growing sealing buildings give rise to a poor indoor air quality. Solarwall technology provides an economic and applicable solution for heating and ventilation, and nowadays it is widely used in buildings. An aim of this article was to analyze the air flow and heat transfer inside solarwall. We used realizable k-ε model of FLUENT to simulate conditions of different air supply velocities, indicating the temperature distribution and air velocity distribution inside solarwall. Results showed that the temperature inside the solarwall fluctuated with the holes position. Furthermore, on the width direction sections temperature varied with the absorbed solar radiation intensity, while on the highly direction sections the peak and valley value of average temperature were both declined along the increase of height. However the increase of air supply velocity weakened the effects of solar radiation and uniformed the air temperature in highly direction. The average air velocity presented an upward trend from the bottom to the top, yet a dramatic decline occurred on the area where air flow direction changed.