Case Study: Impacts of Air-Conditioner Air Supply Strategy on Thermal Environment and Energy Consumption in Offices Using BES–CFD Co-Simulation

Abstract

Due to energy constraints and people’s increasing requirements for indoor thermal comfort, improving energy efficiency while ensuring thermal comfort has become the focus of research in the design and operation of HVAC systems. This study took office rooms with few people occupying them in Wuhan as the research object. The EnergyPlus-Fluent co-simulation method was used to study the impact of 12 forms of air distribution on the thermal environment and air-conditioner energy consumption. The results indicate that 3 m/s supply air velocity and 45° supply air angle are more suitable for the case model in this study. The EnergyPlus-Fluent co-simulation method used in this paper provides a reference for the study of indoor environments in offices with few people occupying them.

Keywords

• air conditioner
• building energy simulation (BES)
• computational fluid dynamics (CFD)
• air distributions
• thermal environment
• energy consumption