A solar passive cooling system of buildings in summer season

The rapidly growing population results in an increasing demand for much more residential and commercial buildings, which leads to vertical growth of the buildings and needs proper ventilation of those buildings. Natural air ventilation system is not sufficient for conventional building structures. Hence fans and air-conditioners are must to meet the requirement of proper ventilation as well as space conditioning. Globally building sector consumes largest energy in heating, cooling, ventilation and space conditioning. This load can be minimized by the application of solar chimney and modification in building structure for heating, cooling, ventilation and space conditioning. Passive solar cooling is a subject of interest to provide cooling by using the sun, a powerful energy source. This is done for ensuring human comfort in hot climates. ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers) defines Comfort as ‘that state of mind which expresses satisfaction with the thermal environment.’ The present paper describes the development of a solar passive cooling system, which can provide thermal cooling throughout the summer season in hot and humid climates. The constructed passive system works on natural convection mode of air. Such system reduces the inside temperature of up to 5°C from the atmospheric temperature. Temperature can further be reduced by the judicious use of night ventilation.