Modeling of Indoor Air Quality and Comfort in the Tombs of Valley of the Kings

Abstract

Airflow characteristics in ventilated and airconditioned spaces play an important role to attain comfort and hygiene conditions. This paper utilizes a 3D Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model to assess the airflow characteristics in ventilated and air-conditioned archeological tombs of Egyptian Kings in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, Egypt. It was found that the optimum airside design system can be attained, if the airflow is directed to pass all the enclosure areas before being extraction with careful selection of near wall velocities to avoid any wear or abrasion of the tomb-wall paintings. In this model conditioned air is allowed to enter the tomb from its entrance with a large area of admission in order to maintain low air velocity while extraction points are distributed along the tomb axis. The mode of evaluation should assess the airflow characteristics in any tomb passage according to its position in the enclosure and the thermal pattern and air quality. The Governing Equations are numerically solved in a three dimensional grid configurations at more than 500000 nodes. The paper addresses the various modeling aspects and constraints and suggests solutions that are viable and do not affect the tomb construction, interior nor sustainability.