CFD Investigation of Air Flow Patterns and Thermal Comfort in a Room with Diverse Heating Systems

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 150-158
Author(s):  
Mohammed Sobhi ◽  
Essam E. Khalil

Objective: The main focus in the current work is to investigate how diverse heating systems and their locations influence the indoor thermal environment in an exhaust- ventilated room. Methods: Four systems for heating the room were used in the current study, in which, heat was transferred by convection and radiation. The four systems were: wall and floor heating at low temperatures, Medium Temperature Radiator (M.T. radiator) heating and High Temperature Radiator (H.T. radiator). Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation was used to investigate indoor temperature, vertical air temperature gradient and thermal comfort for each case. The ventilation rate was set to be 6 air changes per hour (ACH) entering the room through a vent over the window. Results: The findings from the current work were that the low temperature heating systems had better temperature distributions with lower vertical Air Temperature Differences compared to high and medium temperature radiator systems. Conclusion: The Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) and the predicted percentage of dissatisfied (PPD) based on Fanger’s model were calculated for all cases, and were found to be in the recommended ranges.

2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 401-411
Author(s):  
Sugiono Sugiono ◽  
Ryan Fardian ◽  
Oyong Novareza

Thermal comfort is one of ergonomics factors that can create a significant impact to workers performance. For a better thermal comfort, several environment factors (air temperature, wind speed and relative humidity) should be considered in this research. The object of the study is a building for converting process of plastics manufacturing industry located in Malang, Indonesia. The maximum air temperature inside the building can reach as high as 36°C. The result of this study shows that heat stress is dominantly caused by heat source from machine and wall building. The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation is used to show the air characteristic through inside the building. By using the CFD simulation, some scenarios of solution are successfully presented. Employees thermal comfort was investigated based on predicted mean vote model (PMV) and predicted percentage of dissatisfied model (PPD). Existing condition gives PMV in range from 1.83 to 2.82 and PPD in range from 68.9 to 98%. Meanwhile, modification of ventilation and replacing ceiling material from clear glass into reflective clear glass gave significant impact to reduce PMV into range from 1.63 to 2.18 and PPD into range from 58.2 to 84.2%. In sort, new design converting building process has more comfortable for workers.


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.


Atmosphere ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (10) ◽  
pp. 402 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaoxue Wang ◽  
Yuguo Li ◽  
Xinyan Yang ◽  
Pak Chan ◽  
Janet Nichol ◽  
...  

The street thermal environment is important for thermal comfort, urban climate and pollutant dispersion. A 24-h vehicle traverse study was conducted over the Kowloon Peninsula of Hong Kong in summer, with each measurement period consisting of 2–3 full days. The data covered a total of 158 loops in 198 h along the route on sunny days. The measured data were averaged by three methods (direct average, FFT filter and interpolated by the piecewise cubic Hermite interpolation). The average street air temperatures were found to be 1–3 °C higher than those recorded at nearby fixed weather stations. The street warming phenomenon observed in the study has substantial implications as usually urban heat island (UHI) intensity is estimated from measurement at fixed weather stations, and therefore the UHI intensity in the built areas of the city may have been underestimated. This significant difference is of interest for studies on outdoor air temperature, thermal comfort, urban environment and pollutant dispersion. The differences were simulated by an improved one-dimensional temperature model (ZERO-CAT) using different urban morphology parameters. The model can correct the underestimation of street air temperature. Further sensitivity studies show that the building arrangement in the daytime and nighttime plays different roles for air temperature in the street. City designers can choose different parameters based on their purpose.


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.


Technologies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 90
Author(s):  
Siliang Lu ◽  
Erica Cochran Hameen

Heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems play a key role in shaping office environments. However, open-plan office buildings nowadays are also faced with problems like unnecessary energy waste and an unsatisfactory shared indoor thermal environment. Therefore, it is significant to develop a new paradigm of an HVAC system framework so that everyone could work under their preferred thermal environment and the system can achieve higher energy efficiency such as task ambient conditioning system (TAC). However, current task conditioning systems are not responsive to personal thermal comfort dynamically. Hence, this research aims to develop a dynamic task conditioning system featuring personal thermal comfort models with machine learning and the wireless non-intrusive sensing system. In order to evaluate the proposed task conditioning system performance, a field study was conducted in a shared office space in Shanghai from July to August. As a result, personal thermal comfort models with indoor air temperature, relative humidity and cheek (side face) skin temperature have better performances than baseline models with indoor air temperature only. Moreover, compared to personal thermal satisfaction predictions, 90% of subjects have better performances in thermal sensation predictions. Therefore, personal thermal comfort models could be further implemented into the task conditioning control of TAC systems.


2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 628-641
Author(s):  
F Faridah ◽  
Sentagi Utami ◽  
Ressy Yanti ◽  
S Sunarno ◽  
Emilya Nurjani ◽  
...  

This paper discusses an analysis to obtain the optimal thermal sensor placement based on indoor thermal characteristics. The method relies on the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation by manipulating the outdoor climate and indoor air conditioning (AC) system. First, the alternative sensor's position is considered the optimum installation and the occupant's safety. Utilizing the Standardized Euclidean Distance (SED) analysis, these positions are then selected for the best position using the distribution of the thermal parameters' values data at the activity zones. Onsite measurement validated the CFD model results with the maximum root means square error, RMSE, between both data sets as 0.8°C for temperature, the relative humidity of 3.5%, and an air velocity of 0.08m/s, due to the significant effect of the building location. The Standardized Euclidean Distance (SED) analysis results are the optimum sensor positions that accurately, consistently, and have the optimum % coverage representing the thermal condition at 1,1m floor level. At the optimal positions, actual sensors are installed and proven to be valid results since sensors could detect thermal variables at the height of 1.1m with SED validation values of 2.5±0.3, 2.2±0.6, 2.0±1.1, for R15, R33, and R40, respectively.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (16) ◽  
pp. 4402 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xianfeng Huang ◽  
Zhen Lu ◽  
Zhixiang Zhuang

By analyzing measurements of the thermal environment of a qilou (arcade building) street, this study used the relative warmth index (RWI) to evaluate the thermal comfort in the colonnade space of a qilou. The analysis of the influence of the temperature, humidity, and wind speed on the thermal comfort in the colonnade space of a qilou street was conducted, and it was shown that the ambient wind speed had a strong influence on the RWI, indicating that a proper increase in the wind speed positively affected thermal comfort in this space. Then, this study also analyzed the effects of different forms of qilou streets on the wind environment by employing computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and summarized the architectural design measures that can improve the thermal comfort, including adopting back chamfer, street gaps, and the appropriate sizing of building components. It was concluded that the wind environment of a qilou could be optimized in terms of these measures, and the average RWI value decreased by 0.06, effectively enhancing the thermal comfort in the colonnade space. The research findings are applicable toward designing a thermally comfortable environment in the transitional space.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1420326X2092552
Author(s):  
Yang Zhang ◽  
Wenxuan Yu ◽  
Youli Li ◽  
Han Li

In this article, a comparative study on the outdoor air pollutant prevention and indoor thermal comfort for different types of ventilation was carried out. Both objective experiment, subjective experiment and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation were conducted to investigate the differences in air pollutant prevention and thermal comfort between four common ventilation methods, namely supplying on the ceiling and returning on the ceiling (SC-RC), supplying on the ceiling and returning on the side wall (SC-RSW), supplying on the side wall and returning on the ceiling (SSW-RC), and supplying on the side wall and returning on the side wall (SSW-RSW). Results show that SSW-RSW can provide the highest indoor air quality according to the indoor average PM2.5 concentration. Overall thermal sensation was introduced to evaluate the indoor comfort under the four ventilation methods. The voting results show that the indoor thermal comfort can be enhanced by 29–36% under SSW-RSW and SSW-RC. Therefore, SSW-RSW is more suitable for providing a healthy and comfortable indoor environment.


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.


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