The article validates a CFD model with the experimental results in an office with furniture.
Another work published by the mentioned authors describes how to use the verification, validation and reporting manual for the CFD analysis proposed by ASHRAE. The calibration methodology proposed in our work explains step by step the procedure to be followed for the calibration of the CFD model with the experimental results, also evaluating the error reached and its applicability. This work presents the CFD methodology to follow but does not apply the methodology to a real experimental case.
Although the format for reporting of CFD analysis does not necessarily have to be the same, the chapter suggests to include all the aspects used in verification and validation for technical readers.
In the scientific literature, we can find works such as those reported by Chen and Srebric, where they recommend verifying and validating a CFD code for indoor environment modelling based on the following aspects: basic flow and heat transfer features, turbulence models, auxiliary heat transfer and flow models and numerical methods, assessing CFD predictions and drawing conclusions. In order to investigate the properties of the indoor airflow, tracer gas techniques or the measurement of variables such as air temperature, surface temperature, air velocity or heat flow through boundary elements is used. Transparent fluids such as the atmospheric air are difficult to study by simple observation. The first is the temperature gradient in a given volume of air that produces natural buoyancy, and the second cause is the pressure difference created by mechanical fans. This methodology can be used by other researchers to calibrate CFD models in existing rooms and then carry out detailed studies of temperature distribution, comfort and energy demand analysis.Īirflow inside internal environments is mainly caused by two main physical phenomena. The application of the methodology has shown satisfactory results, finding a maximum error of 9% between the CFD model and the experimental result. The variable of interest was the room air temperature and its distribution within the internal environment. The developed CFD models used the standard k-ε turbulence model and the SIMPLE algorithm. A set of experiments was performed with varying boundary conditions of two main variables, the fan speed of the HVAC unit and the surface wall temperature of the opposite wall to the HVAC unit. The experimental campaign took place in an empty office room within an educational building. The methodology proposed here aims at selecting the correct grid size and the appropriate boundary conditions from experimental data. The developed CFD models included a model of an internal wall-mounted air conditioning (HVAC) split unit. The models were validated with physical test measurements of room air temperature. This chapter describes a methodology for the development and calibration of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models of three-dimensional enclosures for buildings with combined forced and natural convection from experimental result.