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Procedia Engineering 00 (2017) 000–000
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Procedia Engineering 205 (2017) 1100–1107

10th International Symposium on Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning, ISHVAC2017, 19-
22 October 2017, Jinan, China

Occupant Comfort and Indoor Temperature Reduction by Using

Passive Air Conditioning System with Solar Chimney Concept in
Hot Arid Climate
Amr Sayed Hassan ABDALLAH*
Department of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering, Assiut University, Assiut 71516, Egypt

Abstract

Housing in Egypt consumes high energy for cooling. Bioclimatic building design is one of the strategies of sustainable
development. The aim of the present research is to investigate the thermal performance of solar chimney with passive cooling
wind tower (SCPC) on occupant’s comfort. The passive cooling design is integrated on the ceiling of 30 m2 test house.
Monitoring of indoor environment was carried out over a period of two months in the summer season (September and early
October) with a 2 minute interval in order to calculate thermal comfort sensation, Predicted mean vote (PMV) and PPD. The
results show that outlet air temperature from the wind tower is 27.3°C. The calculated predicted mean vote (PMV) is within the
recommended range (-0.5<PMV<+0.5). This indicates that occupants remain satisfied with indoor thermal environment after
using the passive cooling system and the difference is nearly 8 K between outdoor and indoor. The results of this research
provide information of the system applicability in the climate of Assiut during day time in order to develop and install on top of
real residential buildings in New Assiut, Egypt.
© 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
© 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 10th International Symposium on Heating, Ventilation and Air
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 10th International Symposium on Heating, Ventilation and
Conditioning.
Air Conditioning.
Keywords: Passive air condition; Solar chimney; Occupant comfort; Thermal sensation

1. INTRODUCTION

People spend 80% of their life time indoors. A serious problem of discomfort exists inside new housing projects
in New Assiut City [1,2]. Poor indoor comfort impacts productivity and health [3,4]. When using mechanical air

* Corresponding author.Tel.: +201002021565; fax: +20882332553.

E-mail address: arch_amrsayed@yahoo.com, Dr.amrsayed@aun.edu.eg

1877-7058 © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 10th International Symposium on Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning.

1877-7058 © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 10th International Symposium on Heating, Ventilation and
Air Conditioning.
10.1016/j.proeng.2017.10.178
 Amr Sayed Hassan Abdallah / Procedia Engineering 205 (2017) 1100–1107 1101
2 Amr Abdallah/ Procedia Engineering 00 (2017) 000–000

conditioning, indoor thermal comfort consumes high energy. Historically, passive cooling techniques were used for
many centuries in old traditional buildings of hot arid countries. These passive techniques were used to decrease
building energy consumption and to provide indoor thermal comfort [5,6,7,8].
There is a little published information available about the effects of passive cooling design with solar chimney on
occupant’s comfort. Meanwhile, many researchers studied the passive cooling with wind tower theoretically,
numerically and experimentally without investigating the effect of these systems on occupants' thermal sensation
[9,10,11]. Y. Bouchahm et al. investigated the thermal performance of two types of houses using two types of wind
towers in the southern region of Algeria. Monitoring for indoor environment was conducted during the month of
July with system improvement [12]. Yaghubi et al. investigated and discussed the thermal performance of three
buildings with wind tower in terms of effectiveness in achieving thermal comfort [13]. The main aim of this study is
to investigate the thermal performance of solar chimney with passive cooling tower design (SCPC) as a single
prototype integrated within a small test house and its effects on occupants' thermal behavior. The present study deals
with thermal performance of passive air conditioning system with solar chimney in the hot dry climate of Assiut.
Experimental investigation is done with air exchange between other rooms inside the test house. The purpose of
using the passive air conditioning system is to bring thermal comfort for occupants and circulate cool air within the
space or through the building. The new design is made from conventional materials available in domestic market.
Moreover, simple installation with minor changes is needed in the structure of the building; especially the top
concrete ceiling.

2. CASE STUDY LOCATION & DESCRIPTION

Investigation was done inside a small building built inside El-Gorib site of Assiut University. The small building
was built as a test house for developing a passive cooling system with an area of 30m2. The test house is consisted of
a living room, a bedroom, a small bathroom and a kitchen, as shown in figure 1. The overall heat transfer coefficient
of the wall, floor and roof are 2.60, 0.797 and 0.443, respectively. The walls of the building are made from a hollow
brick made from clay with a thickness of 0.1m and covered with cement from both sides with thickness of 0.02m
and a U-value of 2.6 (W/m2K) for the wall. The solar chimney is oriented towards the south. The inclination length
of the chimney was 2m on the inclined length in order not to extend the vertical height (1.5m) according to the
Egyptian Building Regulation Law. The solar chimney is made from black aluminum with emissivity of 0.95 and
glass with transmissivity of 0.84 and thickness of 0.002m and 0.1m, respectively. The building is not surrounded by
any high building in order to evaluate the performance of passive air condition system on indoor environment.

Fig. 1. Plan of the 30m2 test house and the perspective for phases 1, 2 & 3.

The cool towers use a wet cellulose pad system made from expanded paper. The pad dimensions are 150mm X
60mm and its thickness is 10mm. It is wetted by a water pipe running on the top of the pads as shown in figure 2.
The excess water from the pad is collected at the bottom of a water reservoir. The water consumption through the
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Amr Abdallah/ Procedia Engineering 00 (2017) 000–000 3

system is nearly 18 l/day. A small water pump is used to recirculate water through the pad. A small hole was opened
in the upper side of the wet cellulose pad in order to increase air flow through it. Experimental investigation of solar
chimney was done in phase 1. The result illustrated that the solar chimney achieved a high air flow rate of 0.69 Kg/s
during high solar radiation of 890 W/m2 [14]. System performance was investigated by apply to a single room
without air exchange from other room in phase 2 [15].

Fig. 2. The cooling pad (expanded paper) schematic.

Figure 3 shows the description of the wet pad inside the tower with water tube and the external view of the SCPC
components (solar chimney and short wind tower). Also, the exterior view of the building is shown with the view of
solar chimney and tower.

Fig. 3. The exterior view of the building and the description for solar chimney and wind tower.
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3. METHODOLOGY

To conduct this research, monitoring was done in the building as phase 3 after evaluating and developing the
SCPC system in phases 1 and 2 [14,15]. The measurements were carried out in a period of two months in the
summer season (August, September and early October) with 2 minute intervals. Monitoring for temperature, relative
humidity, wind speed, globe temperature, clo and met were conducted with an evaluation for thermal comfort
sensation [16]. Table 1 shows the type of measurement devices used in the monitoring. Tripod was used to install
temperature/relative humidity sensor for the indoor room condition at a height of 1.1m according to thermal
variables of ASHRAE standard 55, 2004. Calculation for the mean radiant temperature was done by depending on a
measurement of globe temperature using a black sphere with a diameter of 75mm. Also, calculations for the
predicted mean vote (PMV), Predicted percentage dissatisfaction (PPD), the sensation of thermal comfort and
Adaptive Comfort Standard were done according to ASHRAE (2010) online tool [17]. The measurement of thermal
sensation was done for the occupants in this test house doing light work (1.2 Metabolic) and wearing typical
summer cloth 0.5 clo.

Table 1. shows the measurement parameters and types of measurement devices used in monitoring..
Parameters Instrument accuracy
Temperature and humidity TR72Ui ±1%RH, ±0.1°C
Wind speed AM-4214SD (10 to 95%RH) & (0 to 50°C)
Globe temperature (ASN-080340-75), radius 75 mm ± 0.8 ℃ and ± (5% + 0.1m/s)

4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

In order to understand the actual indoor environment inside the test house after using the passive cooling system,
a clear pattern of a sample data as an example will be presented from the two month data monitoring in order to
realize small changes in indoor environment.

4.1. Evaluation of temperature and relative humidity profile

According to the data collected after monitoring, reduction of indoor temperature is achieved inside the living
room and the bedroom of the test house according to 90% of the acceptable range of adaptive comfort standard of
ASHRAE in figure 4. The average dry bulb temperature of the condition air entering the room from the wind tower
is 27.3°C. Temperature difference between outdoor and the living room exceeds 8 K especially in peak hours (After
3:00 pm). Table 2 shows the statistical characteristics of indoor and outdoor temperature. It is concluded that the
supplied air is still considered suitable to enhance indoor thermal comfort according to ASHRAE.

Table 2. The statistical characteristics of indoor and outdoor temperatures.

Indoor Range Mean±SD Samples distribution
Skewness Kurtosis
26.4-29.1 27.29±0.66 0.24 -1.078
Outdoor 29.5-37.4 35.25±2.31 -1.041 -0.49

The cooling pad has been modified to increase water nozzles in the tube and increase saturation efficiency. Also,
four circular holes have been opened in the upper part of the cooling pad to increase air flow in the cooling pad
(expanded paper) and temperature reduction of indoor temperature has been achieved. This affects temperature
difference and indoor cooling. It is clear that indoor temperature in the living room is higher than the bedroom due
to the existence of occupants inside the living room. As can be observed, tower outlet and house temperatures
increase sharply with a decrease in indoor relative humidity when the cooling system is stopped suddenly. This
reflects the influence of passive cooling on indoor temperature. Therefore, reduction of indoor temperature is
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Amr Abdallah/ Procedia Engineering 00 (2017) 000–000 5

achieved during day time until sunset while low air flow and cooling are achieved during night time and after sunset.
This indicates the system limitation during nighttime.

Fig. 4. Temperature profile inside the test house, tower inlet, and chimney inlet.

It is clear that indoor relative humidity takes the same pattern of outdoor as shown in figure 5. Indoor relative
humidity exceeds the acceptable range of relative humidity (20%~60%) especially before 11:30 am due to the
increasing outdoor relative humidity in that period of October. Table 3 shows the statistical characteristics of indoor
and outdoor relative humidity.

Table 3. The statistical characteristics of indoor and outdoor relative humidity.

Indoor Range Mean±SD Samples distribution

Skewness Kurtosis
48-68 59.36±4.62 0.33 -1.04
Outdoor 5-31 10.67±6.90 -1.71 -0.28

Fig. 5. Relative humidity profile inside the test house, tower inlet, and chimney inlet.

The psychrometric chart for living room of the test house was shown in figure 6. The resulting relative humidity
is within the acceptable range. However, the temperature is a bit higher than the recommended temperature of the
summer comfort range of naturally-ventilated building. This result shows that outdoor temperature is too high;
indicating further cooling is needed especially with a high outdoor temperature after 11:30pm. Arundel proposed
that low or high humidity affects on health strongly. The optimum humidity level for minimizing adverse effects is
between 40% & 60% after using the passive cooling technique [16,18]. The cooling performance of the passive air
condition system cooling performance is high for wind speeds higher than 0.5 m/s.
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Fig. 6. Property changes of the air relative humidity after passing throughout the passive air condition system.

4.2. Thermal comfort evaluation

The calculations of PMV and PPD were done based on Fanger's model. It is concluded, that the calculated
predicted mean vote (PMV) is within the recommended range (-0.5<PMV<+0.5) and the predicted percentage of
dissatisfied (PPD) is <10. This indicates that the condition is within the comfort range with Clo =0.5 based on ISO
7730. Further, analysis was conducted to find neutral operative temperature as a function of PMV. The linear
regression coefficient of the predicted mean vote is 0.64; implying a strong correlation. It is concluded that the
regression line represents the sensitivity of occupants existing inside the test house with respect to the operative
temperature and is found to be 0.12/ºC, as shown in figure 7.

Fig. 7. (a) The calculation of PMV and PPD inside the living room; (b) the linear regression calculation based on PMV versus the operative
temperature.

The thermal acceptability is considered based on ASHRAE standard 55 and ISO7730 [19]. It is concluded that
the most widely acceptable thermal comfort range is within the limit (-0.5, 0, +0.5) of ASHRAE-seven-point scale
which accounts for 90% or a PPD of 10% [20]. Figure 8 shows the distribution of thermal sensation votes. The
occupants inside the test house perceive thermal sensation as neutral. It indicates that occupants still satisfied with
indoor thermal environment after using passive cooling system.
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Fig. 8. Thermal sensation vote for room indoor environment.

5. CONCLUSIONS

All The experimental results of a passive air conditioning system with solar chimney illustrate that using this new
design makes the air inside the living room closer to the acceptable thermal environment. Significant reduction of air
temperature is achieved with relative humidity between 40% to 60%, and within the acceptable range except
between 10:00 am to 12:00 pm. The difference between outdoor and indoor cooling temperatures exceeds 8 K at
peak time (3:00pm). The mean value for indoor cooling is 27.29±0.66 (Mean±SD).
It was observed that due to the harsh summer climate in Assiut when the outdoor temperature exceeds 42ºC, it is
not possible to achieve thermal comfort in the house with passive strategies only. It is necessary to use active
strategies to cool the space with reasonable temperatures, especially in the extreme days (>42ºC) with low energy
for cooling in a specific period of time. However, it was clear that using new passive cooling design when outdoor
temperature exceeds 42ºC can help on the reduction of the AC cooling load by reducing indoor temperatures as well
as reducing the external heat gain.
Passive air conditional system is used to achieve indoor cooling for housing unit located in the top floor of new
and existing building. There is no monthly cost for energy consumption in this system compare to other traditional
systems with fresh air and indoor air quality inside the room. The new system design is applicable to the climate of
Assiut during day time and till sunset. This is because the performance of the solar chimney is very weak after the
sunset, which affects air flow inside the system. Thus, low cooling is achieved during night time because of system
limitation. Therefore, more research is needed in the future to develop the system for night cooling with integration
of thermal storage in the solar chimney.

Acknowledgements

This study is a part of a research project funded by STDF (The Ministry of State for Scientific Research, Egypt),
project no. 10255.

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