Solar chimney–wind tower concept - A passive cooling system for urban buildings
Saturday, February 16th, 2008
In the race of finding alternate power source, we have something windy now. According to the International Journal of Sustainable Design, we have gone one step ahead with two brilliant researchers, namely Jyotirmay Mathur and Rajeev Kathpalia from the Malaviya National Institute of Technology, Jaipur, India. The duo have developed a ‘solar chimney–wind tower concept’, which is based on the primitive and passive method of cooling buildings.
The duo claims that though this technique had already been used to keep the interior of the buildings cool in summer, they have incorporated more scientific and modern methods to add more value to the older system. Developed for a so-called fully urban building in Delhi, this duo has decided to utilize the natural resources to the fullest, walking side by side with the limitations of the site. As the name suggests, their system combines a solar chimney and a wind tower to the overall building design. Their method uses a stone covered wind tower to push in the cool air inside the building, which again pushes the hot air outside through the thermal conducting panels of the chimney.
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