Energy Efficient Design of Ventilation System for the Preservation of the Tombs of the Valley of Kings, Luxor

Abstract

The cultural heritage left by the Egyptian Pharaohs in the tombs of the Valley of the Kings represents some of the key elements of the Egyptian cultural and tourism wealth and standing monuments demonstrating the wealth and technology of the pharaohs. Furthermore, the Pharaohnic civilization is one of the oldest civilizations; hence, preserving its remaining monuments and collections should be the focus of international efforts. A major portion of this civilization, i.e. the tombs of the Kings, is intact in the Valley of the Kings, Luxor, Egypt. These tombs were prepared to bury the Kings’ mummies and artifacts for eternal life. Many of the wall paintings identifying the various ancient rituals and life style are in good conditions as the tombs were only recently opened to the public. However, tourists’ activities in these tombs have resulted, in many instances, to dramatic deterioration of the wall paintings due in part to excessive humidity. This could be clearly seen in King Tutankhamen tomb, where fungi and pests have attacked a majority of the paintings. In addition, the air flow, thermal and humidity patterns in the tombs are not appropriate for human comfort, as the tombs were built for the eternal resting place of the Kings and not for visitation. The current indoor air flow conditions and air quality in the tombs are quite alarming; hence, appropriate measures should be taken to preserve the tombs and their contents. This dilemma invokes the need for a proper ventilation system that stabilizes the air conditions as well as addresses visitor comfort level. Deterioration can be from lighting effects, high temperature and relative humidity. Pest infections, shock and vibration are also potential causes among pollution and visitors traffic. To design an optimum HVAC airside system that provides comfort and air quality in the air-conditioned spaces with efficient energy consumption is a great challenge. Air conditioning can be identified as the conditioning of the air to maintain specific conditions of temperature, humidity, and dust level inside an enclosed space. The levels of the air conditions to be maintained are dictated by the local environment, type and number of visitors and required climate and the required visitors comfort and property reservation. The comfort air conditioning is defined as “the process of treating air to control simultaneously its temperature, humidity, cleanliness, and distribution to meet the comfort requirements of the occupants of the conditioned space”.(ASHRAE(2005).For the present work, following similar work of AbdelAziz (2005)and Khalil(2006), a numerical study is carried out to define the optimum airside design of the tombs air ventilation and conditioning systems, which provides the optimum comfort and healthy conditions with optimum energy utilization. The present work made use of packaged Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) programs. The present paper introduces a description of the computational solver and its validation with steady state results of the previous properly related literatures. Basically, airside design types are considered here for the tomb passage of King Ramsis VII, Ramsis IV, Siti II and Bay including different visitors (obstacles) alternative positioning to introduce the capability of the design to provide the optimum characteristics. The full description of the parametric cases’ parameters is discussed later. The primary objective of the present work is to assess the airflow characteristics, thermal pattern and energy consumption in the different tomb ventilation configurations in view of basic known flow characteristics. The paper ends with a brief discussion and conclusions.