INTEGRATED SIMULATION OF BUILDINGS AND EVAPORATIVE COOLING SYSTEMS

Evaporative cooling can successfully be utilized for cooling indoor sp aces in numerous areas in the world. These coolers are inexpensive, en vironmentally safe and energy efficient compared to conventional air-c onditioners. To design the most efficient combination of a building an d its evaporative cooling system an accessible and user-friendly desig n tool with short solution times is needed. Such a tool could not be f ound in existing literature. Available computer programs are either to o complex or too simplified for successful design application. The lac k of design tools can be ascribed to the difficulty in simplifying the simulation of the passive thermal performance of a building. A simpli fied but sufficiently accurate simulation procedure for passive buildi ngs was recently developed and implemented in the computer program, EA SY. This program provided a sound basis for the development of a desig n tool with the aid of which any type of evaporative cooler can be ana lysed. This includes regenerative systems coupled to any type of build ing. In this article it is shown how the analysis procedure for evapor ative cooling systems was developed and coupled to the simplified buil ding thermal simulation. The nem, tool is fast, easy to use and suffic iently accurate for design purposes. By utilizing this tool it was fou nd that evaporative cooling systems can ensure thermal comfort in well -designed buildings in more than 80% of Southern Africa.