Effects of the height of supply outlet of façade-mounted hybrid downdraft evaporative cooler on the indoor air quality of an office building

Abstract

The hybrid downdraft evaporative cooler (HDEC) conditions a building by cooling with humidification and hence, inappropriate location of its supply outlet on a building facade has a great impact on the indoor air quality (IAQ) which affect the health, concentration, and productivity of the occupants. This paper investigates the effect of the height of the HDEC supply outlet on the IAQ of an office building equipped with the HDEC system in Bayero University Kano. The building model was created using DesignBuilder software while DesignBuilder CFD was employed for the parametric simulation using air change effectiveness (ACE) as the performance criterion. The height of the HDEC supply outlet was varyfrom 0.1m to 2.4m step 0.1m above the floor level. The results show that higher values of ACE in the occupants’ breathing zone were obtained at lower heights of the HDEC supply outlets with the best ACE of 1.1588 obtained at 0.3m. This information could help engineers to optimally position the HDEC supply outlet on the façade of an office building or any other building with similar characteristics.