Experimental and Numerical Investigation of Solar Thermal Buffer Zone

Abstract

<p>Solar thermosiphons integrated into the thermal envelop of buildings has been studied for their potential to take advantage of solar energy in heating buildings. The annual performance of the Solar Thermal Buffer Zone cannot currently be predicted with the correlations from previous research. Also, no work has been done on using the thermal buffer zone with a natural convection for energy savings in a building even though it has the potential to provide heating. The goal of this project was to design, analyze and determine the feasibility of a thermal buffer zone in a building. A thermal buffer zone can be defined as a fluid filled cavity which envelopes a building. This cavity provides a building with additional insulation but also allows for collection of solar energy and to be distributed throughout the structure in order to heat the interior. To show the physical aspect, the flow visualization in the project, computational fluid dynamic (CFD) software was used which was experimentally not possible. A physical prototype was then designed and constructed in order to test the effectiveness of the TBZ.</p> <p>This experiment included radiation as the heat source and the ability to vary geometric lengths. The performance parameters of mass flow rate were comparable between the numerical predictions and experimental results. However, due to uncertainties in the current experimental setup, full validation of the numerical model was not possible. These uncertainties would have to be addressed before the numerical model that was developed can be fully validated and used for generating correlations.</p>