Live from HomeLab, it’s the Graduate Program! The Thermal Mass and Buoyancy Ventilation Research Project team members are officially Rural Studio master’s students. The team’s summer semester has started off hot with ventilation opening calibration.
The Concrete Chimney Experiment got a boost (Livia for reference) 
new shoes!
Even with the latest ventilation opening adjustment, described in our airflow post, the data from the Concrete Chimney Experiment reveals the airflow is still choked. As you can see in the temperature signal graph below, the thermal mass surface temperature never rises above the interior air temperature as it should in an optimally tuned space. If we then look at the airflow graph below, we see that the updraft, bulk airflow during the night, is nearly double the downdraft, bulk airflow during the day. When the blue line is above zero, the system is in updraft and when below zero it is in downdraft. Both of these graphs allude that the thermal storage cycle and the buoyancy ventilation cycle are out of sync. This is due to a lack of air. Air drives the cycles as it brings warm air into the chimney to be absorbed and offloaded by the thermal mass.
Dashed Gray = Interior Air
Orange = Thermal Mass Surface,
Dashed Orange = Thermal Mass Interior
Blue = Bulk Air Flow
The team examined their previous math for calculating the total area for the ventilation opening. They’ll spare you the gory details, but the predicted bulk air flow rate they were using to calculate the size was too small resulting in a ventilation opening that was too small. Thanks to the airflow sensors they no longer needed to use a predicted air flow rate and instead used the actual average airflow rate coming from the Concrete Chimney Experiment. After this recalculation the ventilation opening nearly doubled from 3/4” to 1 1/8”. The team then let the chimney do her thing for a week.
Dashed Gray = Interior Air
Orange = Thermal Mass Surface,
Dashed Orange = Thermal Mass Interior
The data is in and it is as hot as the Alabama asphalt. The team, along with their colleagues were correct in their assumption that the flow was being choked AND the new ventilation opening size is allowing the chimney to operate optimally! In the temperature signal graphs, the thermal mass surface temperature and the interior air temperature properly oscillate. Therefore, the thermal mass is absorbing the heat properly allowing it to be warmer than the interior air at times.
As you can see from the airflow graphs, the bulk airflow of the updraft and the down draft has equalized and is becoming more symmetrical. Both outcomes, in temperature and airflow, reveal there is now a proper amount of air moving through the chimney. The downdraft is still a bit more turbulent than the updraft however and the team wondered if this was due to the concrete pad underneath the chimney releasing heat it absorbed throughout the day. To combat this heat, the team jacked up their Concrete Chimney Experiment… literally!
To raise the chimney, in order to give it some more height via cinder blocks, the Thermal Mass and Buoyancy Ventilation Research Project used car jacks. The team will see if this helps with the heat interference and its possible effects on the air flow.
As you can see Wolfie is still in town on his summer vacation! He and Copper like to observe the team work. To insure their safety as the chimney was being raised they watched from inside the car. They really love the car. For more science, design, and cute pets, stay tuned!