The Optimal Design of the Air Distribution System for a Library Located in the Subtropical Area

Abstract

In this study, the critical operation parameters related to the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system of a campus library located in the subtropical area are numerically optimized. The objective of this study is to improve the library's thermal comfort and indoor air quality (IAQ) by adjusting the operating conditions of the AC system. As a result, the library's energy consumption is significantly reduced with this new HVAC system design. The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software ANSYS Fluent and experimental measurements are used to verify the effects of changes in velocity, temperature, and relative humidity (RH) of the air supply system (three operating parameters) on the ventilation efficiency. The ventilation efficiency is also assessed by parameters such as AC power consumption, the predicted mean vote (PMV) for thermal comfort, and CO2 concentration for IAQ (three target performances). Using the optimization tool, ANSYS DesignXplorer (DX), an innovative response surface (RS) was developed numerically to analyze the relationship between those three operating parameters and the three mentioned target performance characteristics.