The use of a building enclosure siding as a passive cooling device

The effect of ventilation in the space between a main wall and an exterior siding is examined with respect to reducing the building's cooling load. The buoyant force of the air in the space is considered as the motive force of air flow and the effect is treated as a problem of simultaneous heat and mass-transfer. A simulation program of heat and air flows in a wall has been developed using laminar flow theory, and its validity is examined by thecomparison of the simulation results with a weather exposed full-scale model test. The computer simulation shows that the ventilation of air spaces has the potential to reduce the radiative heat gain of both opaque walls and of triple glass windows.