The largest amount of energy in buildings is consumed to provide heating, cooling, and ventilation. Therefore, a practical solution such as using renewable energy sources can be considered to reduce energy costs and pollutants. In addition, architecture principles must be varied to utilize passive solar energy and also to reduce energy losses. In this research, a numerical study is presented to investigate the thermal behavior of TW-FR (Trombe wall placed in a fenestrated room) in the semiarid region of Tunisia. Computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulation of fluid flow and heat transfer shows good agreement with published data in literature. The thermal comfort level was calculated according to ASHRAE (55-2013). The results show that (i) the normal Trombe wall cannot assure a satisfactory comfort level even in summer conditions and a higher vertical temperature gradient can take a value of 15°C, and the Trombe wall is shown to be more efficient in heating mode in the studied semi-arid region compared to cooling; (ii) the operative temperature for the coldest winter is between 17.85 and 19.85°C. The air temperature gradient in the comfort ranges between the head and feet is 2.3°C; and (iii) the Trombe wall is an excellent solution for Sousse city weather; it is suggested that the passive system (TW-FR) will be examined for a whole year to have a precise evaluation of its efficiency.

It is crucial to consider structural design issues in Trombe wall (T-wall) buildings to promote more suitable indoor climates and thermal comfort standards. Therefore, the present study examined the impact of two different T-wall designs and six different roof types on the energy and operational efficiency of a building located in a low-temperature and high-humidity winter climate. Ansys-CFX 15.0 software was employed to simulate the thermal and fluid dynamics behavior of the T-wall system, and flow, thermal comfort, energy, and exergy analyses were conducted. Three-dimensional simulation results and the pertinent literature data showed a good level of agreement, and the accuracy of the model was ensured. Outcomes revealed an average air velocity variation of 0.186 m/s and maximum average indoor air temperature variation of 3.3 °C between the six roof geometries. The highest air speed (0.988 m/s) was recorded for the gambrel roof while the lowest one (0.802 m/s) was recorded for the typical flat roof. The shed roof right with a rounded T-wall was more comfortable for standing and sitting activity than the others for the two T-wall shapes, and, at Y = 0.6 m and Y = 1.1 m, the average predicted percentages of dissatisfied (PPD) values were 31 and 28%, respectively. Furthermore, it was determined in the study that solar radiation intensity and T-wall and roof geometries had a significant effect on energy and exergy efficiency, and high energy and exergy efficiencies were achieved at higher solar intensity values. The best energy and exergy efficiencies were obtained for the butterfly and shed roof configurations. This study can serve as a reference for the thermal environment design of buildings with T-walls.

Air velocity and hence the temperature uniformity is essential for maintaining the required thermal environment inside poultry building. In this context, ventilation systems in poultry houses play a critical role to ensure appropriate indoor climatic conditions. The objective of this study was to assess the effect of inlet velocity with uniform shear on internal microclimate of poultry house in semi arid region. The main novelty of this work is to evaluate the capacity of the new and original technique of ventilation to supplies fresh air. Air velocities tested in this study is 0.68 m/s, air enters with uniform shear, (S = 1 s⁻¹, S = 0.5 s⁻¹ and S = 1.36 s⁻¹) while the temperature is 22°C. The analysis is extended to wind speed enters without shear S = 0 s⁻¹. Finally, evaluations were provided between the uniform velocity and velocity with uniform shear. The CFD results show a noticeable reduction in microclimate differences if using air flow with uniform shear for natural ventilation. The results showed also a uniformity and homogeneity of temperature and better distribution of air flow at the height of the broilers (0.2 m).

The experimental data from the literature established that the typical two-fluid model that had good agreement with the air water data was not appropriateto the case of air-nanofluid bubbly flow. In fact, the dynamics into the changed interfacial behaviors should be taken in considerationwhen modeling air-nanofluid bubbly flows. The paper proposes an approach to improve the modeling of air-nanofluid bubblyflow through the use of measurement data. This approach consists of (i) using a Eulerian Eulerian model in commercial computationalfluid dynamics (CFD) code ANSYS CFX-15 to simulate cover air-nanofluid bubbly flow in a vertical circular tube, operated various interfacialforces closures. (ii) Analyzing and discussing the effect of the interfacialforce formulation on the bubble velocity and void fraction profiles. It was recommended that, when modeling bubbly flows of nanofluids using the Eulerian Eulerian approach, it is necessary to reformulate the interfacialforces accountingfor the effects of nanoparticles.