Overheating caused by passive solar elements in Tunis. Effectiveness of some ways to prevent it

Nadia Ghrab-Morcos, Chiheb Bouden and Robert Franchisseur

Renewable Energy, 1993, vol. 3, issue 6, 801-811

Abstract: Although Tunisian winters are mild compared with northern regions, there are heating requirements; their limited level suggests that passive solar energy would probably be able to meet them. However, the summer is hot enough, and one may wonder whether a solar design oriented toward the cold season would not induce severe overheating. Numerous studies have dealt with the heating performance of passive solar elements, but very little has been done to analyze their behavior in hot climatic conditions. The National School for Engineers of Tunis has built a passive solar pavilion which has been carefully instrumented. Special care has been devoted to the summer behavior of the pavilion. In this paper we describe some of the actions taken to prevent overheating, and we investigate their efficacy both by analysis of recorded measurements and by simulation. It is found that night ventilation is the most responsible action in decreasing room temperature, and that Trombe wall screening is more efficient than operating the walls as a solar chimney; overhangs are of valuable aid, and shuttering of the direct gain element also helps against overheating. The high thermal capacity results in a very stable room temperature, and plays an essential role for cooling when coupled with night ventilation. Finally, it is found that if appropriate action is taken in the hot season, a house equipped with passive solar heating elements can reach a very acceptable level of comfort in summer time.

Date: 1993
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/096014819390088X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:renene:v:3:y:1993:i:6:p:801-811

DOI: 10.1016/0960-1481(93)90088-X

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable Energy is currently edited by Soteris A. Kalogirou and Paul Christodoulides

More articles in Renewable Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().