Estimation of the main thermal parameters of a real size solar chimney from outdoordynamic tests

The growing energy consumption for cooling of buildingsis one important concern in Mediterranean countries.Natural ventilation plays an important role as passive energy saving strategy, regarding cooling of buildings in this climate. Solar chimneys are some of the most useful systems that make use of this strategy. But optimised implementation and quantification of the improvements achieved by these systems are required and must be assisted by a comprehensive thermal characterisationof them. However the performance of solarchimneys depends on combined and very complex physical phenomena. Frequently several approximationsare assumed in theoretical analysis that can lead to certain degree of inaccuracy on the results.This paper reports the experimental thermal characterisationof a solar chimney constructed and monitored at the LECE (Laboratorio de ensayos Energticos para Componentsde la Edificacin), from CIEMAT in Tabernas (Almera, Spain). The tests have been carried out in real size and dynamic outdoors weather conditions. The thermalcharacteristics of the solar chimney have been obtainedby dynamic analysis of the data sets using system identification tools. The analysis has been done and validatedusing data from different testing conditions. The experimental results are compared to the bibliographic coefficients considered in previous theoretical studies.