Enhancing building thermal comfort with a double finned trombe wall absorber: a transient 3D CFD analysis

Abstract

Thermal comfort inside buildings is a fundamental human need, yet meeting this need often entails significant energy consumption. The utilization of solar energy for building heating has been achieved through Trombe wall (TW) systems, which offer an eco-friendly and sustainable solution. This study aims to enhance the efficiency of TW systems by investigating the impact of adding fins to the solar radiation absorber. Addressing identified gaps in the literature, a transient 3D computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model is proposed to analyze the energy, exergy, and economic aspects of the finned TW. The turbulence is modeled using the k-omega model, while experimentally measured solar radiation intensities are incorporated via the Discrete Ordinates model. The transient analysis reveals that while air vortices naturally occur in Trombe wall systems due to buoyancy effects, the addition of fins intensifies these vortices, leading to more structured recirculation patterns, lower pressure zones, and non-uniform air velocity in the exit vent. The proposed finned TW demonstrates energy and exergy efficiencies of 61.45% and 3.35%, respectively. An economic analysis is conducted using a life cycle cost analysis, which indicates an optimal cost of 2950 TND (approximately 900 dollars) and a payback period of 0.7 years. This study confirms the effectiveness of utilizing prismatic vertical fins to enhance the performance of TW systems, requiring minimal investment costs.

Keywords

Trombe wall / Double finned absorbers / CFD / Solar energy / Building thermal comfort / Life cycle cost

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