Numerical Simulation of Air Distribution in a Residential Building With Capillary Plane HVAC Terminal System

Author(s):  
Wei Bing ◽  
Jiang Lu ◽  
Li Li ◽  
Zhiwei Wang

Nowadays the capillary plane HVAC terminal system as an advanced terminal air conditioning system is being widely used. It has many advantages such as thermal comfort, energy conservation and saving indoor space etc. In this paper, with the example of a typical residential room where the capillary plane HVAC terminal system is installed, the indoor thermal environment is simulated and the influence of different capillary mat placement modes is analyzed, three operating modes in summer and winter are simulated by using the method of CFD, and the corresponding temperature fields are presented. Based on the simulation results, the temperature fields are appraised from the view of thermal comfort. These will be good references to the design and application of the capillary plane HVAC terminal system.

2012 ◽  
Vol 512-515 ◽  
pp. 2882-2886
Author(s):  
Shi Jie Wu ◽  
Zeng Feng Yan

Natural ventilation is an important role to improve the residential building indoor thermal environment in summer. This paper use Energy Plus to simulate indoor thermal environment and use CFD to simulate indoor air flow for Xi’an residential building, analysis the influence that different ventilation mode for indoor thermal environment factors. Then with the simulated result of PMV-PPD value to estimate indoor thermal comfort. Proved night ventilation is necessary in residential building in Xi’an and effectiveness to improve indoor thermal comfort.


2012 ◽  
Vol 518-523 ◽  
pp. 4461-4465
Author(s):  
Li Li

The good and comfortable environment is beneficial to the health, and can improve working efficiency, make people imbued with more creativity. This means strengthening the competitiveness, increase economic efficiency. So, creating the good building environment not merely has a meaning on technology, and has social effect and economic meaning. In order to understand the situation of indoor thermal environment of the seaside residential building generally, a field measurement on the condition of summer was made in Xiamen from the last ten days of July to the first ten day of Aug, 2005, 2006 and 2008. Test the thermal environment and investigate the thermal comfort in residential buildings of natural ventilation condition, analyze the main influence factors of indoor thermal environment, and evaluate indoor thermal comfort with effective temperature (ET). The curves of indoor air temperature and relative humidity reflect the character of high temperature and high relative humidity in summer in Xiamen residential buildings. Discuss the methods of building energy saving. Suggest that, for seaside city in hot days, the natural ventilation and interval natural ventilation should be the main fundamental methods of improving the resident building thermal environment.


2014 ◽  
Vol 694 ◽  
pp. 256-259
Author(s):  
Xin Zhan ◽  
Hua Yang ◽  
Feng Yun Jin

Airflow and heat transfer simulation was conducted for a double-skin façade (DSF) system equipped with shading devices in the cavity, using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) with RNG turbulence model and PISO algorithm, for five conditions of slat angles (θ=0°, 30°, 45°, 60°, 90°). The present study indicates that the presence of shading devices influences the temperatures, the ventilation rate and the air distribution in the DSF system. Besides, the different angles will make different influences.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 3614
Author(s):  
Zeyad Amin Al-Absi ◽  
Mohd Isa Mohd Hafizal ◽  
Mazran Ismail ◽  
Azhar Ghazali

Building sector is associated with high energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, which contribute to climate change. Sustainable development emphasizes any actions to reduce climate change and its effect. In Malaysia, half of the energy utilized in buildings goes towards building cooling. Thermal comfort studies and adaptive thermal comfort models reflect the high comfort temperatures for Malaysians in naturally conditioned buildings, which make it possible to tackle the difference between buildings’ indoor temperature and the required comfort temperature by using proper passive measures. This study investigates the effectiveness of building’s retrofitting with phase change materials (PCMs) as a passive cooling technology to improve the indoor thermal environment for more comfortable conditions. PCM sheets were numerically investigated below the internal finishing of the walls. The investigation involved an optimization study for the PCMs transition temperatures and quantities. The results showed significant improvement in the indoor thermal environment, especially when using lower transition temperatures and higher quantities of PCMs. Therefore, the monthly thermal discomfort time has decreased completely, while the thermal comfort time has increased to as high as 98%. The PCM was effective year-round and the optimum performance for the investigated conditions was achieved when using 18mm layer of PCM27-26.


2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 172-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sushil B. Bajracharya

This paper seeks to investigate into the aspects of thermal performance of traditional residential buildings in traditional settlements of Kathmandu valley. This study proceeds to analyze the detailed field data collected, with a view to identify the indoor thermal environment with respect to outdoor thermal environment in different seasons. This paper also compares the thermal performance of traditional buildings with modern residential buildings of traditional settlements of the valley. There is a regression analysis to obtain information about the thermal environment of different traditional and modern residential buildings with different conditions. The paper concludes that, thermal performance of traditional residential building, adapted in various ways to the changing thermal regime for thermal comfort is better than that of contemporary buildings.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/jie.v10i1.10898Journal of the Institute of Engineering, Vol. 10, No. 1, 2014,  pp. 172–183


2020 ◽  
pp. 014459872096921
Author(s):  
Yanru Li ◽  
Enshen Long ◽  
Lili Zhang ◽  
Xiangyu Dong ◽  
Suo Wang

In the Yangtze River zone of China, the heating operation in buildings is mainly part-time and part-space, which could affect the indoor thermal comfort while making the thermal process of building envelope different. This paper proposed to integrate phase change material (PCM) to building walls to increase the indoor thermal comfort and attenuate the temperature fluctuations during intermittent heating. The aim of this study is to investigate the influence of this kind of composite phase change wall (composite-PCW) on the indoor thermal environment and energy consumption of intermittent heating, and further develop an optimization strategy of intermittent heating operation by using EnergyPlus simulation. Results show that the indoor air temperature of the building with the composite-PCW was 2–3°C higher than the building with the reference wall (normal foamed concrete wall) during the heating-off process. Moreover, the indoor air temperature was higher than 18°C and the mean radiation temperature was above 20°C in the first 1 h after stopping heating. Under the optimized operation condition of turning off the heating device 1 h in advance, the heat release process of the composite-PCW to the indoor environment could maintain the indoor thermal environment within the comfortable range effectively. The composite-PCW could decrease 4.74% of the yearly heating energy consumption compared with the reference wall. The optimization described can provide useful information and guidance for the energy saving of intermittently heated buildings.


2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 106-127
Author(s):  
António Manuel Figueiredo Freitas Oliveira ◽  
◽  
Helena Corvacho ◽  

In this paper, some of the results of an experimental study are presented. Its purpose was to better understand the impact of glazing on thermal comfort of users of indoor spaces (living and working), especially in the areas near glazed walls. Glazed elements, such as windows and glazed doors, allow visual access to the outdoor environment and the entrance of natural light and solar heat gains but they are often the cause of unwanted heat losses and gains and are disturbing elements in obtaining thermal comfort, both in global terms and in what concerns local discomfort due to radiant asymmetries and/or air draughts. Furthermore, solar radiation directly affecting users in the vicinity of glazing can also cause discomfort. These disturbances are recognized by users, both on cold winter days and on hot summer days. To assess thermal comfort or thermal neutrality of a person in a particular indoor space, it is important to know their location within that space. Thus, in order to adequately assess thermal comfort in the areas near the glazing, the indoor thermal environment must be characterized for this specific location. In this study, two indoor spaces (a classroom and an office-room) of a school building were monitored at different periods of the year. The measurements of the environmental parameters were performed both in the center of the rooms and in the areas near the glazing. Five models of thermal comfort assessment were then applied to the results, in order to compare the comfort conditions between the two studied locations and to evaluate the applicability of these models to the areas close to glazed walls. It was observed there was clearly a greater variability of comfort conditions in the vicinity of the glazed walls when compared to the center of the rooms. The application of thermal comfort assessment models to the two studied rooms was able to reveal the differences between the two compared locations within each space. It was also possible to show the effect of incoming solar radiation and the influence of the geometry of the spaces and of the ratio between glazed area and floor area by comparing the results for both spaces. The assessment model proposed by LNEC (Portuguese National Laboratory of Civil Engineering) proved to be the most adapted to Portuguese users’ habits.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1420326X2110345
Author(s):  
Marika Vellei ◽  
William O’Brien ◽  
Simon Martinez ◽  
Jérôme Le Dréau

Recent research suggests that a time-varying indoor thermal environment can lead to energy savings and contribute to boost buildings' energy flexibility. However, thermal comfort standardization has so far considered thermal comfort criteria as constant throughout the day. In general, very little attention has been given to the ‘ time of day' variable in the context of thermal comfort research. In this paper, we show some evidence of a time-varying thermal perception by using: (1) data from about 10,000 connected Canadian thermostats made available as part of the ‘ Donate Your Data' dataset and (2) about 22,000 samples of complete (objective + ‘ right-here-right-now' subjective) thermal comfort field data from the ASHRAE I and SCATs datasets. We observe that occupants prefer colder thermal conditions at 14:00 and progressively warmer ones in the rest of the day, indistinctively in the morning and evening. Neutral temperature differences between 08:00 and 14:00 and 14:00 and 20:00 are estimated to be of the order of 2°C. We hypothesize that the human circadian rhythm is the cause of this difference. Nevertheless, the results of this study are only based on observational data. Thermal comfort experiments in controlled environmental chambers are required to confirm these findings and to better elucidate the effects of light and circadian timing and their interaction on thermal perception.


2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 163-170
Author(s):  
Rajan KC ◽  
Hom Bahadur Rijal ◽  
Masanori Shukuya ◽  
Kazui Yoshida

The energy use in residential dwellings has been increasing due to increasing use of modern electric appliances to make the lifestyle easier, entertaining and better. One of the major purposes of indoor energy use is for improving indoor thermal environment for adjusting thermal comfort. Along with the use of passive means like the use of mechanical devices, the occupants in any dwellings use active means such as the use of natural ventilation, window opening, and clothing adjustment. In fact, the use of active means when the outdoor environment is good enough might be more suitable to improve indoor thermal environment than the use of mechanical air conditioning units, which necessarily require electricity. Therefore, the people in developing countries like Nepal need to understand to what extent the occupants can use active means to manage their own indoor thermal comfort. The use of active means during good outdoor environment might be an effective way to manage increasing energy demand in the future. We have made a field survey on the occupants’ adaptive behaviors for thermal comfort in a Japanese condominium equipped with Home Energy Management System (HEMS). Online questionnaire survey was conducted in a condominium with 356 families from November 2015 to October 2016 to understand the occupants’ behaviors. The number of 17036 votes from 39 families was collected. The indoor air temperature, relative humidity and illuminance were measured at the interval of 2-10 minutes to know indoor thermal environmental conditions. The occupants were found using different active behaviors for thermal comfort adjustments even in rather harsh summer and winter. Around 80% of the occupants surveyed opened windows when the outdoor air temperature was 30⁰C in free running (FR) mode and the clothing insulation was 0.93 clo when the outdoor air temperature was 0⁰C. The result showed that the use of mechanical heating and cooling was not necessarily the first priority to improve indoor thermal environment. Our result along with other results in residential buildings showed that the adaptive behaviors of the occupants are one of the primary ways to adjust indoor thermal comfort. This fact is important in enhancing the energy saving building design.


2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haofu Chen ◽  
Zhuangbo Feng ◽  
Shi-Jie Cao

Rational and scientific design of indoor air conditioning is essential. In the design of Heating, Ventilating and Air Conditioning system, air-supply speed (ventilation rate) and air-supply temperature are the two most important parameters. In the current study, numerical simulations and experimental measurements were adopted to investigate the influences of ventilation mode, air-supply velocity and air-supply temperature on indoor thermal comfort as well as building energy consumption in summer. Different ventilation modes (up supply and down exit, ceiling supply and ceiling exit) were considered in modelling. Based on the simulation and experimental results, dimensionless index [Formula: see text] is proposed, which represents the ratio of buoyancy weighting force to inertial force. This index can be used as a pre-evaluation index of indoor thermal comfort in preliminary design of air conditioning. It is an indicator to judge the working conditions in cooling-ventilated rooms. When [Formula: see text], the settlement and diffusion effects of indoor airflow reach a good level, which means that the parameter setting could provide a comfortable indoor thermal environment. The dimensionless number [Formula: see text] is a theoretically based tool in the pre-evaluation of indoor thermal environment, providing guidance for setting of ventilation design parameters.


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