Optimization of Heat Transfer in an Enclosure with a Trombe Wall and Solar Chimney

Trombe walls and solar chimneys have been widely used by the construction industry for many years to heat buildings. In this study, the heat conductance of a Trombe wall was simulated and studied. The equations related to energy and momentum were solved numerically by use of the technique of control volume. The equations were solved simultaneously using the Simple algorithm. At first, a base case was defined and simulated. A sensitivity analysis study was then performed to investigate the parameters affecting the performance of the wall. Based on the results, an optimized geometry was suggested which maximized the performance of the Trombe wall. In addition, the effect of the presence of the fins on the surface of the absorber wall was studied. In order to obtain the best geometry, the fins were assumed to have different shapes but a constant area. The results showed that the Trombe wall with rectangular fins demonstrated the best performance compared to the other fin geometries studied in this paper. The presence of rectangular fins can increase the room temperature by 1.24% compared to other fin geometries.