Title: An Experimental Investigation of the Passive Cooling of a Building Using Nighttime Radiant Cooling
Abstract: An experimental study to determine the feasibility of using nocturnally cooled water for space cooling is presented. The experimental test rig consist of a room, flat plate sky radiator, a heat exchanger unit, a storage tank, pump, interconnecting pipes, and a control room. The test room has a dimension of 3.0 m × 3.0 m × 2.5 m and is made from 6 inch (0.15 m) hollow cement blocks. It has two windows and an access door while the roof is pitched at 12°. The cooling process occurs in two parts: the nocturnal part when water is cooled by night sky radiation and the diurnal part when the water cooled during the nocturnal part is circulated through a heat exchanger for space cooling. Series of tests were conducted under the meteorological condition the Federal University of Technology, Owerri, for the period of November, 2010 to March, 2011. Results obtained showed that with the facility in place, a room temperature of 26 to 28°C could be maintained on a day when the maximum ambient temperature is 34°C. This corresponds to a temperature depression of up to 2.5°C below the average room temperature, representing about 101 kJ of cooling. Thus, passive cooling using nocturnally cooled water has a great potential in space cooling in the tropics.
Publication Year: 2014
Publication Date: 2014-03-17
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 17
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