Evaluating Thermal Performance and Energy Conservation Potential of Hybrid Earth Air Tunnel Heat Exchanger in Hot and Dry Climate—In Situ Measurement

Author(s):  
Rohit Misra ◽  
Vikas Bansal ◽  
Ghanshyam Das Agarwal ◽  
Jyotirmay Mathur ◽  
Tarun Aseri

Earth air tunnel heat exchanger is a passive cooling device with advantageous feature to reduce energy consumption in buildings. Curtailing the electricity consumption of conventional vapor compression system based air-conditioner is a major concern especially in area with hot and dry weather conditions. The performance of conventional air-conditioners can substantially be enhanced by coupling these active cooling systems with passive cooling systems. In the present research, the thermal performance and energy conservation potential of hybrid cooling system has been investigated experimentally. An attempt has been made to enhance the thermal performance of active cooling system by coupling it with earth air tunnel heat exchanger (EATHE) in two different hybrid modes. The air which comes out of EATHE is relatively cooler than the ambient air and therefore can be used either for cooling the condenser tubes of a conventional window type air-conditioner or supplying it directly to the room being conditioned. The energy consumption of conventional 1.5TR window type air conditioner is found to be reduced by 16.11% when cold air from EATHE is completely used for condenser cooling.

Author(s):  
Arunkumar Damodharan ◽  
Ramu Murugan ◽  
Syath Abuthakeer

Increasing the energy ratio of an air conditioner that has a cooled air condenser is a difficult problem, particularly in areas where the temperature and humidity are very high. The efficiency of air conditioners based on standard vapor compression technology can be enhanced by combining active cooling technologies with less energy-intensive inactive cooling technologies. In this study, the cooling performance of combined cooling systems has been experimentally explored. Using four different modes of a hybrid ground-coupled heat exchanger (GCHE), an analysis was carried out to enhance the energy ratio of the active cooling system connected to the GCHE. This was achieved by using the fact that the GCHE outlet air temperature is lower than the ambient temperature and can directly supply space heating or cooling to the condenser tubes of conventional air conditioners. It was observed that with the use of a GCHE for the condenser tubes, the energy consumption of a traditional window air conditioner was reduced by 16.18%.


2020 ◽  
pp. 50-64
Author(s):  
Kuladeep Kumar Sadevi ◽  
Avlokita Agrawal

With the rise in awareness of energy efficient buildings and adoption of mandatory energy conservation codes across the globe, significant change is being observed in the way the buildings are designed. With the launch of Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC) in India, climate responsive designs and passive cooling techniques are being explored increasingly in building designs. Of all the building envelope components, roof surface has been identified as the most significant with respect to the heat gain due to the incident solar radiation on buildings, especially in tropical climatic conditions. Since ECBC specifies stringent U-Values for roof assembly, use of insulating materials is becoming popular. Along with insulation, the shading of the roof is also observed to be an important strategy for improving thermal performance of the building, especially in Warm and humid climatic conditions. This study intends to assess the impact of roof shading on building’s energy performance in comparison to that of exposed roof with insulation. A typical office building with specific geometry and schedules has been identified as base case model for this study. This building is simulated using energy modelling software ‘Design Builder’ with base case parameters as prescribed in ECBC. Further, the same building has been simulated parametrically adjusting the amount of roof insulation and roof shading simultaneously. The overall energy consumption and the envelope performance of the top floor are extracted for analysis. The results indicate that the roof shading is an effective passive cooling strategy for both naturally ventilated and air conditioned buildings in Warm and humid climates of India. It is also observed that a fully shaded roof outperforms the insulated roof as per ECBC prescription. Provision of shading over roof reduces the annual energy consumption of building in case of both insulated and uninsulated roofs. However, the impact is higher for uninsulated roofs (U-Value of 3.933 W/m2K), being 4.18% as compared to 0.59% for insulated roofs (U-Value of 0.33 W/m2K).While the general assumption is that roof insulation helps in reducing the energy consumption in tropical buildings, it is observed to be the other way when insulation is provided with roof shading. It is due to restricted heat loss during night.


Author(s):  
Seyyed Khandani ◽  
Himanshu Pokharna ◽  
Sridhar Machiroutu ◽  
Eric DiStefano

Remote heat pipe based heat exchanger cooling systems are becoming increasingly popular in cooling of notebook computers. In such cooling systems, one or more heat pipes transfer the heat from the more populated area to a location with sufficient space allowing the use of a heat exchanger for removal of the heat from the system. In analsysis of such systems, the temperature drop in the condenser section of the heat pipe is assumed negligible due to the nature of the condensation process. However, in testing of various systems, non linear longitudinal temperature drops in the heat pipe in the range of 2 to 15 °C, for different processor power and heat exchanger airflow, have been measured. Such temperature drops could cause higher condenser thermal resistance and result in lower overall heat exchanger performance. In fact the application of the conventional method of estimating the thermal performance, which does not consider such a nonlinear temperature variations, results in inaccurate design of the cooling system and requires unnecessarily higher safety factors to compensate for this inaccuracy. To address the problem, this paper offers a new analytical approach for modeling the heat pipe based heat exchanger performance under various operating conditions. The method can be used with any arbitrary condenser temperature variations. The results of the model show significant increase in heat exchanger thermal resistance when considering a non linear condenser temperature drop. The experimental data also verifies the result of the model with sufficient accuracy and therefore validates the application of this model in estimating the performance of these systems.   This paper was also originally published as part of the Proceedings of the ASME 2005 Pacific Rim Technical Conference and Exhibition on Integration and Packaging of MEMS, NEMS, and Electronic Systems.


Author(s):  
Muhammad Nizam Kamarudin ◽  
Sahazati Md. Rozali ◽  
Mohd Saifuzam Jamri

Harvesting energy from the sun makes the photovoltaic (PV) power generation a promising technology. To obtain a consistent state of charge (SOC), consistent energy must be harvested and efficiently directed to the battery. Overcharging or undercharging phenomena decreases the lifetime of the battery. Besides, the effect of irradiance toward solar in term of sunlight intensity effects the efficiency and hence, sluggish the SOC. The main problem of the solar panel revealed when the temperature has increased, the efficiency of solar panel will also be decreased. This manuscript reports the finding of developing an automatic active cooling system for a solar panel with a real time energy monitoring system with internet-of-things (IoT) facility. The IoT technology assists user to measure the efficiency of the solar panel and SOC of the battery in real time from any locations. The automatic active cooling system is designed to improve the efficiency of the solar panel. The effectiveness of the proposed system is proven via the analysis of the effect of active cooling toward efficiency and SOC of photovoltaic system. The results also tabulate the comparative studies of active-to-passive cooling system, as well as the effect of cooling towards SOC and efficiency of the solar panel.


Author(s):  
Devendra Dandotiya ◽  
Nitin D. Banker

The power output of a gas turbine plant decreases with the increase in ambient temperature. Moreover, the ambient temperature fluctuates about 15–20°C in a day. Hence, cooling of intake air makes a noticeable improvement to the gas turbine performance. In this regard, various active cooling techniques such as vapor compression refrigeration, vapor absorption refrigeration, vapor adsorption refrigeration and evaporative cooling are applied for the cooling of intake air. This paper presents a new passive cooling technique where the intake air temperature is reduced by incorporating phase change material (PCM) based heat exchanger parallel to conventional air intake line. During the daytime, the air is passed through the PCM which has melting temperature lower than the peak ambient temperature. This will reduce the ambient air temperature before taking to the compressor. Once the PCM melts completely, the required ambient air would be drawn from the ambient through conventional air intake arrangement. During the night, when there is lower ambient temperature, PCM converts from liquid to solid. The selected PCM has a melting temperature less than the peak ambient temperature and higher than the minimum ambient temperature. It is observed from the numerical modeling of the PCM that about four hours are required for the melting of PCM and within this time, the intake air can also be cooled by 5°C. The thermodynamic analysis of the results showed about 5.2% and 5.2% improvement in net power output and thermal efficiency, respectively for four hours at an ambient temperature of 45°C.


Author(s):  
Wei Minghui ◽  
Cai Wei ◽  
Xu Mingze ◽  
Deng Shuang

Abstract Downhole high temperature environment is an important factor affecting the performance of downhole instrument electronic system.At present, various active cooling technologies and passive cooling technologies have been proposed to reduce the temperature of downhole electric circuit system.However, passive cooling technologies can only provide limited cooling capacity for drilling tools under high temperature environment, and the duration of cooling is short, which can not meet the long-time drilling task.This paper presents an Active cooling system(ACS)for downhole electronics and the effects of different temperatures on the performance of electronic components are analyzed.The ACS mainly includes a micro supercharger, condenser tube, evaporation pipe, capillary tube and refrigerant.The theoretical analysis of heat transfer and refrigerant capacity in high temperature environment is carried out.The thermal characteristics of the ACS is evaluated experimentally.The results show that the temperature of electronic components can be reduced to below 163°C in the 200°C downhole environment and components.The geomagnetic field data measured by electronic components at room temperature, 200 °C and with ACS are compared.The results show that ACS can keep electronic components working normally.


Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (19) ◽  
pp. 5038
Author(s):  
Goopyo Hong ◽  
Chul Kim ◽  
Jun Hong

In commercial buildings, HVAC systems are becoming a primary driver of energy consumption, which already account for 45% of the total building energy consumption. In the previous literature, researchers have studied several energy conservation measures to reduce HVAC system energy consumption. One of the effective ways is an economizer in air-handling units. Therefore, this study quantified the impact of the outdoor air fraction by economizer control type in cooling system loads based on actual air-handling unit operation data in a hospital. The optimal outdoor air fraction and energy performance for economizer control types were calculated and analyzed. The result showed that economizer controls using optimal outdoor air fraction were up to 45% more efficient in cooling loads than existing HVAC operations in the hospital. The energy savings potential was 6–14% of the differential dry-bulb temperature control, 17–27% of the differential enthalpy control, 8–17% of the differential dry-bulb temperature and high-limit differential enthalpy control, and 16–27% of the differential enthalpy and high-limit differential dry-bulb temperature control compared to the no economizer control. The result of this study will contribute to providing a better understanding of economizer controls in the hospital when the building operates in hot-humid climate regions.


1993 ◽  
Vol 115 (4) ◽  
pp. 212-219 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. A. Pesaran

We conducted experiments to quantify the effects of thermal cycling and exposure to contamination on solid desiccant materials that may be used in desiccant cooling systems. The source of contamination was cigarette smoke, which is considered one of the worst pollutants in building cooling applications. We exposed five different solid desiccants to “ambient” and “contaminated” humid air: silica gel, activated alumina, activated carbon, molecular sieves, and lithium chloride. We obtained the moisture capacity of samples as a function of exposure time. Compared to virgin desiccant samples, the capacity loss caused by thermal cycling with humid ambient air was 10 percent to 30 percent for all desiccants. The capacity loss because of combined effect of thermal cycling with “smoke-filled” humid air was between 30 percent to 70 percent. The higher losses occurred after four months of experiment time, which is equivalent to four to eight years of field operation. Using a system model and smoke degradation data on silica gel, we predicted that, for low-temperature regeneration, the loss in performance of a ventilation-cycle desiccant cooling system would be between 10 percent to 35 percent, in about eight years, with higher value under worst conditions.


Solar Energy ◽  
2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jianing Zhao ◽  
Jun Guo ◽  
Weimeng Sun

Utilization of renewable energy becomes more and more attractive and crucial for sustainable buildings. A cooling system, using outdoor fresh air and combining with the conventional all-air system or running along during different seasons, is discussed in this study. Running energy consumption of this system is analyzed by a mathematical model using the Genetic Algorithm (GA) combined with the traditional Lagrange method. To evaluate and apply this new system, energy consumption of the chiller unit, water and air sub-systems, as well as the total energy consumption of such a system is compared with that of the conventional all-air system. Consequently, the total energy consumption is selected as the criterion of energy efficiency. The results show that the cooling system bears considerably energy efficient, and that it reduces energy consumption at least 14% and 12%, compared with the constant air volume and variable air volume system, respectively.


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