CFD Simulation and Optimisation of a Low Energy Ventilation and Cooling System

Abstract

Mechanical Heating Ventilation and Air-Conditioning (HVAC) systems account for 60% of the total energy consumption of buildings. As a sector, buildings contributes about 40% of the total global energy demand. By using passive technology coupled with natural ventilation from wind towers, significant amounts of energy can be saved, reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases. In this study, the development of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis in aiding the development of wind towers was explored. Initial concepts of simple wind tower mechanics to detailed design of wind towers which integrate modifications specifically to improve the efficiency of wind towers were detailed. From this, using CFD analysis, heat transfer devices were integrated into a wind tower to provide cooling for incoming air, thus negating the reliance on mechanical HVAC systems. A commercial CFD code Fluent was used in this study to simulate the airflow inside the wind tower model with the heat transfer devices. Scaled wind tunnel testing was used to validate the computational model. The airflow supply velocity was measured and compared with the numerical results and good correlation was observed. Additionally, the spacing between the heat transfer devices was varied to optimise the performance. The technology presented here is subject to a patent application (PCT/GB2014/052263).

Computational Analysis of Natural Ventilation Flows in Geodesic Dome Building in Hot Climates

“…Therefore, it is essential to replace the mechanical systems with passive techniques known to have low energy consumption and carbon emissions and provide good indoor air quality [2,3].…”

A user-controlled thermal chair for an open plan workplace: CFD and field studies of thermal comfort performance

“…The computational domain consisted of an inlet on one side of the domain, and an outlet on the opposing boundary wall with the thermal chair located centrally. Due to the complexity of the model, a non-uniform mesh was applied to volume and surfaces of the computational domain [50,51]. The generated computational mesh is shown in Figure 7.…”

Climatic analysis of a passive cooling technology for the built environment in hot countries

“…The review of current literature showed that significant research interest has been focused on a number of areas relating to the development of windcatcher technology [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][27][28][29][30] and its integration with cooling methods [23][24][25][26] such as heat pipes [15][16][17][18]. The research gaps that this study aims to address are the following; (1) There are limited studies on the experimental investigation of commercial windcatchers, particularly using field test method.…”

“…Several researchers [27][28][29][30] focused on the aerodynamics design and ventilation performance of wind towers and its components.…”