CFD Computations of Flow Regimes and Thermal Patterns in The Tombs of The Valley of Kings

Abstract

Airflow characteristics in ventilated and air-conditioned 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 is found that the optimum airside design system can be attained, if the airflow is directed to pass all the enclosure areas before the extraction with careful selection of near wall velocities to avoid any wear or aberration of the tomb-wall paintings. 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 airside design and internal obstacles are the focus of the present work. The free air supply and mechanically extracted ducted air play an important role in the main flow pattern and the creation of main recirculation zones. The internal obstacles can obstruct the airflow pattern in different ways, such as, by increasing the recirculation zones or by deflecting the main airflow pattern.

On the Modeling of Air Flow in the Tombs of the Valley of Kings

“…The number of visitors, outside air conditions, and different mechanical ventilations configurations were studied for the three tombs using FLUENT® 6.2 CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) package The study is a supplement the work of Omar A. Aziz with addition of thermal comfort prediction which based on the PMV (Predicted Mean Vote) model and the PPD (Percentage Predicted Dissatisfied) model to apply these factors in the design of ventilation system. The PMV equation contains many parameters which should be defined such as, the metabolic rate, mechanical work, the clothes insulation, the coefficients of heat transfer, and others in order to be able to calculate mesh sizes exceeded 1,400,000 mesh volumes in one case, and all mesh sizes were above 100,000 mesh volumes [26][27][28][29][30].…”