Parametric Enhancement of a Window-Windcatcher for Enhanced Thermal Comfort and Natural Ventilation

Window-windcatchers, a passive ventilation method, have been shown to improve ventilation and enhance thermal comfort. Preliminary characterization of a novel window-windcatcher has been undertaken in a previous work, but no relationship had been identified between the actual ventilation rate ($Qact$), the wind velocity ($VTw$) and crucial design parameters such as the fins angle ($ϴ$)). In this paper, the relationship that quantifies how the window-windcatcher’s performance depends on $VTw$ and $ϴ$ was determined. Additionally, for the first time, the ventilation performance of the window-windcatcher was optimized by studying the effects of $ϴ$ and the fins-wall distance ($DW-f$) through a Computational Fluid Dynamics parametric study (ANSYS)|. In this optimization approach, the angle $ϴ$ and the distance $DW-f$ corresponding to the maximum actual-to-required ventilation rate were found to be 80° and 45 cm, respectively. The actual ventilation rate increased by approximately 13.2% compared with the baseline design of the windcatcher ($ϴ$ and $DW-f$ equal to 40° and 45 cm, respectively); this corresponds to an increase of approximately 8.6% in the actual-to-required ventilation rate, according to the ASHRAE standards.