Natural ventilation performance of a double-skin façade with a solar chimney

Double-skin façade is getting more and more attention as it provides many possibilities for energy conservation and at the same time creates good indoor environment. In this paper, natural ventilation performance of a double-skin façade is highlighted. A prototype building is proposed, which is thought to be an eight-storey office building with an atrium space in the north side. The south façade of the building is a double-skin façade and a thermal storage space called solar chimney is considered above the double-skin space. Actually, the double-skin space is connected with the chimney channel. Reduced scale model experiments and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis are carried out in this research to evaluate the natural ventilation performance of the prototype building.