AIR FLOW CONTROL VALVE DEVELOPMENT WITH REINFORCED OPERATING PARAMETERS

Recent research has shown that particles in the air and harmful gases in the environment increase the risk of various respiratory diseases and mortality rates. For effective ventilation, particles and harmful gases in the environment must be captured before they are released into the environment. Air flow control valves (AFCVs) play an active role in the capture of particles and harmful gases in the environment with central ventilation system. In the study, an innovative AFCV, which is the most critical part of central ventilation systems, has been developed. Performance criteria in the innovative AFCV design have been the capture rate, the flow rate and turbulence intensity. In this study, six valves are designed as an alternative to the current valve. The designed valves were mounted on the central ventilation system hood and numerical analysis was performed. ANSYS Fluent software was used for the analysis. The best and worst valves were determined as a result of numerical analysis. Prototypes of the determined valves were created and experimental verification tests were carried out. Again, numerical analyses simulating the experimental tests were performed with these two valves. The experimental test results and numerical analysis results were compared. As a result, due to the innovative AFCV design, the air flow and the capture speed have been increased and the turbulence intensity has been reduced.

Preliminary Investigation of Using DBD Plasma for Application in Micro Combustors

Dielectric-Barrier-Discharge (DBD) plasma actuators are one of the recent research topics that has caught worldwide attention. Plasma actuators are typically used in the aerospace field of study for their flow control and wide usage of different types of plasma actuators. DBD plasma actuator is an immobile actuator that able to be utilized for its flexibility and light weight parts. Due to the wide usage of DBD plasma, it is also able to be useful in the field of combustion in terms of air flow control. In this research, the DBD plasma actuator is tested on its ability to be applied in micro combustors based on the air flow controlling aspect, the temperature of plasma and effects of vibration of plasma. Experiments were performed in the wind tunnel with smoke generator to show the flow separation by DBD plasma actuator while infrared camera and accelerometer were used to sense the temperature and vibration respectively to investigate the effects of DBD plasma actuator on these aspects. Results shows that the plasma generated has minimal effects of the flow characteristics whereas the temperature of plasma has a maximum of 90?celcius when it is generated continuously. The vibration results indicate that generating plasma produces a small amount of vibration.

Air Flow Control of a Smart Electric Fan using IoT Solutions

Remote control of electric fans by the application of IoT technology addresses the restrictions of “push button” controls that are usual in conventional fans. This paper explains a new control method for air flow control of a Smart Electric Fan (SEF), in this case fans mainly used in the household. In this new method the supply voltage that is applied to the motor terminals of the SEF is precisely changed with the mobile application developed by using IoT solutions. As this proposed method integrates with the conventional control methods referred to as the Firing Angle Control method or Phase Angle Control method with a new IoT-based solution, the controlling of any device becomes simpler. We developed a mobile application that enables the fan to be remotely controlled using a smartphone or tablet computer. The phase or delay angle of the voltage waveform is changed by giving as an input from the smart phone mobile application, and this results in minimizing the power loss caused due to switching in case of push button system. We demonstrated that by using this app, implementing the IoT-based solution, the air flow rate of the SEF was increased and the performance of the SEF exceeded the air flow rate of the original, conventionally controlled fan with the speed of the fan being significantly increased. Applying this control method has thus been verified to be advantageous and appropriate for the remote control of the air flow and fan speed, resulting in the efficient Smart Electric Fan. The main focus of this research was to implement the integrated control method in the residential fans.

Sensorless Air Flow Control in an HVAC System through Deep Learning

Sensor-based intelligence is essential in future smart buildings, but the benefits of increasing the number of sensors come at a cost. First, purchasing the sensors themselves can incur non-negligible costs. Second, since the sensors need to be physically connected and integrated into the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system, the complexity and the operating cost of the system are increased. Third, sensors require maintenance at additional costs. Therefore, we need to pursue the appropriate technology (AT) in terms of the number of sensors used. In the ideal scenario, we can remove excessive sensors and yet achieve the intelligence that is required to operate the HVAC system. In this paper, we propose a method to replace the static pressure sensor that is essential for the operation of the HVAC system through the deep neural network (DNN).