Maryam Hossein Ghadiri - Department of Architecture, Dezful Branch, Islamic Azad University, Dezful, Iran,
Mahmood Dehnavi - Department of Architecture, Dezful Branch, Islamic Azad University, Dezful, Iran,

The widespread use of air conditioning to provide thermal comfort for building‟s occupants has became a real problem, since this system has a high impact on the peak electricity load, and causes environmental problems. A mean to reduce energy consumption of air conditioning systems, wind catchers have been used as an alternative solution. The ventilation structure called Badgir or wind catcher is an intelligent exploitation of wind energy. The impact of the height of the wind catcher opening (shelf height), on induced air flow rate through wind catcher is investigated in this paper. In order to evaluate the performance of wind catchers as a natural ventilation system, an accurate CFD simulation of indoor air flow and outdoor wind flow is adopted. This study revealed that the induced air flow rate increases by increasing the height of the opening. There is a considerable increase in air flow rate induced to the room by increasing the opening height from 1m to 2m in wind angle of 45º in investigated wind catchers

Natural ventilation, CFD, Four-Sided wind catcher, Wind catcher shelf height