Abstract
Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is an effective analysis method of personalized ventilation (PV) in indoor built environments. As an increasingly important supplement to experimental and theoretical methods, the quality of CFD simulations must be maintained through an adequately controlled numerical modeling process. CFD numerical data can explain PV performance in terms of inhaled air quality, occupants’ thermal comfort, and building energy savings. Therefore, this paper presents state-of-the-art CFD analyses of PV systems in indoor built environments. The results emphasize the importance of accurate thermal boundary conditions for computational thermal manikins (CTMs) to properly analyze the heat exchange between human body and the microenvironment, including both convective and radiative heat exchange. CFD modeling performance is examined in terms of effectiveness of computational grids, convergence criteria, and validation methods. Additionally, indices of PV performance are suggested as system-performance evaluation criteria. A specific utilization of realistic PV air supply diffuser configurations remains a challenging task for further study. Overall, the adaptable airflow characteristics of a PV air supply provide an opportunity to achieve better thermal comfort with lower energy use based on CFD numerical analyses.
Highlights
Conventional heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems are used to maintain a uniform indoor environment in compliance with design standards
This study found that a significant increase in the number of personalized ventilation (PV) system studies was presented using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) with diverse PV system types associated with different background HVAC systems
Besides the basic elements of CFD simulation for PV study, such as turbulence models, boundary condition, computational grids, convergence criteria, and validation of CFD model, this study investigated the modeling of human body and personalized air supply
Summary
Conventional heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems are used to maintain a uniform indoor environment in compliance with design standards. In the PV field, a considerable number of studies have used CFD to analyze indoor air quality, thermal comfort, ventilation effectiveness, and energy saving in association with turbulence modeling, numerical approximations, and boundary conditions [36,37,38,39]. Several literature-review papers have been published in the PV research field These reviews focused on different ventilation types supplemented by PV [47], personalized conditioning influencing thermal comfort and energy consumption [48], quantification of the ability of personal comfort systems to produce comfort [49], and advanced personal comfort systems in the workplace [50]. PV systems, future CFD procedures and research interests are suggested to provide a preliminary guideline of PV analyses for HVAC engineers and researchers
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