Passive cooling in livestock buildings

The application of a passive cooling system to animal housing was evaluated. For this purpose a model was developed that allows to foresee the temperature and relative humidity of the air inside a livestock building where the natural ventilation is assisted through a solar chimney and the air is cooled through its circulation in buried pipes. The degree of satisfaction of the thermal environmental requirements is evaluated through a synthesis parameter named thermal comfort index, expressed by the percentage of time of the period of study (June to September) where the temperature and the relative humidity of the indoor air belong to the thermoneutral zone.