Chimney Effect and Boundary Layer Disturbance

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this happens because glass that is transparent to visible light waves impedes the re-radiation of infrared wavelengths.

the trapped radiation heats of structure, fixtures, and air inside the greenhouse by the glass (Probably causing stratification), and cannot move the heat away by convection.

chimney effect and boundary layer disturbance.


convection directly affect the comfort of our living space , and even the the clothes that keep us warm. it also affect the boundary layer, which is made up of stagnant air that acts like an insulator. If the t between the ambient air and the boundary layer is anything but zero, the boundary layer will attempt to rise or fall of its own accord, inducing convective heat flow. This can be the boundary layer around our own warm bodies on a cool day, chilled air flowing down a cold windowpane to create floor drafts in a dwelling, or heat rising off the inside of a solar heated wall. Another convective phenomena commonly encountered is the chimney effect. In most furnaces, exhaust gasses exit the combustion process under the influence or convection. The heated gasses are lighter than the ambient air, so they rise up the chimney, pulling air into the furnaceor stove through crack or through a controlled draft regulator. The hotter the flue gasses and the longerthe chimney (within limits imposed by conductive heat loss), the faster the gasses chimney will be. Most stoves and furnace would simply not work if this convective flow was not possible. This chimney effect is not limited to chimney flues. It can be used in a building as a tool to move hot air out of the living space. The rising hot air can be supplied by solar energy. The resultant air movement is used to incude whole house ventilation where it might otherwise be difficult to archieve passively.

Wind as a heat mover


Under the right circumstances, warm lake water lake water will heat the cooler air above it, incuding another fluid convection cell in the air. This air is the heated, rises, cools, and circulates back down to the surface to be heated again. This process is much the same as the drafts settling off a cold window. It is much greater in volume, and we call this movement wind. Anything that can affect the heating of the air mass is important. Wind is our all. We have limited ourself by definition to creating comfort passively in our living environment. We have cut ourselves off (or been cut off by circumstances) from the use of highly concentrated fossil fuel derived energy. Yet to move heat around to our advantage, it

takes energy sometimes large amounts of it. Wind is the on source of energy readily available to us that can do this job. The differences in reflectances of the earths surface is important to heat absorption wherever we are. Black basalt rock will absorb more solar energy than light silica sand. A farmers pasture will absorb less heat energy than the concrete streets and building walls in a city. This brings us back to the basics of material, surface texture, and color. We dont usually think of something like a parking lot affecting natural breezes. Yet such a manmade feature can have a vast effect on the microclimate that we are subjected to in our living spaces. A large black parking lot will absorb a lot of solar energy. This solar energy will be transmitted into the soil through conduction, reradiate into the the sourrounding environment as radiant heat, and will heat the air above it, which can then rise convectivly. This convevtive flow may induce local breezes where there would be none, or it may disrupt natural wind flow. The radiant energy will distribute it self outward from its source to all the surrounding areas adjacent to the lot, causing local heating and possibly destroying any benefits a locally induced breeze might produce. Conductive heating of soil will create a reservoir of heat that will continue to radiate to the surroundings long after the ambient air temperature should have become naturally cooler. All three factore as well as terrain and vegetative cover are interative and each affect the other.

Humidity and evaporation


No discussion of wind and the weather would be comprehensive without understanding the role pf humidity and evaporation. Wind and weather are formed as part of a large heat cycle driven by solar energy. One of the principle forces acting on this cycle is the addition or subtraction of heat through evaporation. It take one BTU (British Thermal Unit) to raise the temperature of one pound of water from 211 to 212oF (99.4 to 100oC), but 970.4 BTUs are needed to turn it to steam at 212oF. those 970.4 BTUs are known as latent heat, measured under standard conditions of one atmosphere of pressure at sea level. Water does not have to boil to absorb this latent heat. It will slowly evaporate at room temperature, requiring the same latent heat. Evaporation requires heat, and this heat, coming from from surroundings, cools the environment considerably. The heat taken in or given off as this process occurs creates a very complicated thermal dance in everything from deserts to hurricanes.

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