A Study of the Impact of Kharkhona on Wind Speed in the Vernacular Housing of Sistan Region

Sistan Region is one of the windy areas of Iran and wind gusts have significantly affected the manner of building construction in the region, leading to formation of unique architectural elements and models. Kharkhona is one of these unique constructs built by the Vernacular architects to moderate climatic conditions especially wind speed. There was a lack of research about the impact of Kharkhona on wind speed and its optimized rate in the Vernacular Housing of Sistan Region; therefore, this study was conducted with the aim of measuring wind speed in abodes equipped with Kharkhona and comparing the resultant human comfort with that of structurally similar houses which are not equipped with Kharkhona in order to determine the most optimized wind speed for achieving indoor thermal comfort in Sistan Region. The methodology consisted of field measurements in two structurally identical rooms, one equipped with and one without Kharkhona, and an outdoor station as reference point. Measurements were performed during the hottest days of June-July 2019 in three-hour intervals and Microsoft Excel’s descriptive statistics was used for analysis of the collected data. The results indicated that, considering the interaction between wind and air temperature in creating thermal comfort, wind speed has a positive impact on thermal comfort in any temperature lower than 32.5°C and a negative impact in any temperature higher than that. Since according to the field measurements of this study the mean temperature of the outdoor station and the room not equipped with Kharkhona was above 32.5°C, wind had a negative impact on thermal comfort. However, since air temperature in the room equipped with Kharkhona was lower than 30°C during the entire day cycle, the 1m/s wind speed had a positive impact on the residents’ thermal comfort.