Modelling conjugate flow and heat transfer in a ventilated room for indoor thermal comfort assessment

Abstract

Conjugate natural and forced convection heat transfers in a domestic model room of finitethickness walls and a heat source have been numerically studied.

Numerical optimisation of thermal comfort improvement for indoor environment with occupants and furniture

“…The difference in the PPD distributions between two sets of prediction data is also recognisable at the location where there exists a strong thermal flow mixing between a cold jet stream from the inlet slot and a warm air stream from the heat source beneath it. More results validation against available test data [12,38,39] can be found in a recent publication by present authors [37], using the same mathematical model and numerical scheme. …”

“…In the energy equation, radiation heat generation from a heating source is also included through a Discrete Ordinates (DO) model already implemented in ANSYS Fluent software and it is applied with various angular discretisation and sub-iteration parameters to control solid angles in discretising each octant of the angular space and volume overhang on each surface respectively, so that radiative conditions can be applied to each individual faces and fluid elements within the computational domain. All the equations can be found in a recent publication [37].…”

“…The present study considers a 3-D model room in dimensions of previously studied by Olesen et al [38], Myhren and Holmberg [12] and Horikiri et al [37], respectively, as seen in Figure 1a. This configuration includes a double panel radiator as a heat source, a glazed window, and a ventilation system (i.e.…”

“…an inlet above the window for extracting cold fresh air, and an outlet on the opposite wall for exhausting warm air), respectively (denoted as model thereafter). The detailed descriptions of installation location and boundary conditions can be found in reference paper [37]. The origin of the coordinate system is located at the mid-point of the intersection line between the floor and the inner wall surface with inlet slot and window along the spanwise direction, as shown in For further studies of heat generation effects, a box-shaped human being is introduced at the center of each sofa.…”

“…Building on previous success of validation and verification exercises of several benchmark test cases [36] and a ventilated model with a heat source [37] using a commercial CFD code ANSYS Fluent, present study further investigates the impact of indoor environment condition on thermal comfort level variation in a 3-D ventilated, furnished and occupied room. Detailed studies of flow and heat transfer characteristics and thermal comfort analysis will be carried out by increasing the complexity of flow and geometry features, such as different layout of furniture and the number of heat-generating sources (e.g.…”