Title: Numerical investigation of unsteady buoyancy driven indoor air flow characteristics under various range of internal heat generation

Authors: V.R. Lenin; S. Sivalakshmi

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Mahendra Institute of Engineering and Technology, Namakkal – 637503, Tamilnadu, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Government College of Engineering – Salem, Salem – 636011, Tamilnadu, India

Abstract: Increase in global warming raises the cooling load to all kinds of building sector. Buildings consume more energy for cooling or heating and it depends on the regional climatic conditions. In summer region, peoples are paying more interest in implementing cooling technique or equipment to achieve the comfort environment. Before analysing the building nature implementation of any machinery leads further increase in energy demand also comfort environment may not be possible. In this work the maximum indoor air temperature of a closed room was investigated under transient condition with various range of internal heat flux. The three dimensional isolated room with constant thermal boundary condition was modelled and the grid independence study executed. The result shows that the flow pattern of the room with hot wall and without hot walls varies. Machinery or equipment selection for cooling of the building plays the important role in the view of efficient utilisation.

Keywords: transient condition; computational fluid dynamics; CFD; indoor air temperature; internal heat flux; indoor air flow profile; buoyancy effect; indoor environment; building simulation; numerical investigation; comfort environment; hot walls.

DOI: 10.1504/IJESD.2018.093243

International Journal of Environment and Sustainable Development, 2018 Vol.17 No.2/3, pp.295 - 315

Received: 27 Mar 2017
Accepted: 17 Jul 2017
Published online: 24 Jul 2018 *

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