The wind-catcher : a traditional solution for a modern problem

Abstract

This study investigated the ability of wind-catcher as an environmentally friendly component to provide natural ventilation for indoor environments and intended to improve the overall efficiency of the existing designs of modern wind-catchers. In fact this thesis attempts to answer this question as to if it is possible to apply traditional design of wind-catchers to enhance the design of modern wind-catchers. Wind-catchers are vertical towers which are installed above buildings to catch and introduce fresh and cool air into the indoor environment and exhaust inside polluted and hot air to the outside. In order to improve overall efficacy of contemporary wind-catchers the study focuses on the effects of applying vertical louvres, which have been used in traditional systems, and horizontal louvres, which are applied in contemporary wind-catchers. The aims are therefore to compare the performance of these two types of louvres in the system. For this reason, a Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) model was chosen to simulate and study the air movement in and around a wind-catcher when using vertical and horizontal louvres. The results indicate significant improvements on the wind-catcher’s performance by applying vertical louvres (up to 28%). Although applying vertical louvres helps to improve the performance of the windcatchers, diagonal main partitions which have been used in contemporary wind-catchers create restrictions against air entry. Therefore, the effects of applying other forms of main partitions such as perpendicular and H shape partitions were investigated. The results of this investigation reveal that applying H shape partitions can improve the efficiency of the system under certain conditions (when the prevailing wind blows against a bigger segment) and the opposite phenomena was observed when then direction of the prevailing wind changed.