Abstract
Radiant cooling systems (RCS) are gaining acceptance as a heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) solution for achieving adequate thermal comfort and maintaining acceptable indoor air quality inside buildings. RCS are well known for their energy-saving potential; however, serious condensation problem hinders the growth of this technology. In order to prevent the risk of condensation, the supply water temperature is kept higher than the dew point temperature of the air inside the room. The full potential of the cooling power of a radiant cooling panel is limited. Therefore, this article is on maximizing the cooling capacity of a radiant cooling panel, in terms of flow configuration. Radiant cooling panels (RCP) with different chilled water pipe configurations are designed and compared, side by side with the conventional serpentine flow configuration. The cooling performance of the radiant cooling panels is evaluated by using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) with Ansys Fluent software (Ansys 2020 R2, PA, USA). Under similar flow and operating conditions, the common serpentine flow configuration exhibits the least effective cooling performance, with the highest pressure drop across the pipe. It is concluded that the proposed designs have the potential of improving the overall efficiency of RCP in terms of temperature distribution, cooling capacity, and pressure drop.
Highlights
The radiant cooling panel (RCP) system has become one of the solutions to improving indoor thermal comfort, due to its low energy consumption compared to all-air systems [1]
RCP provides extensive flexibility in terms of installation and zoning compared to other radiant system types, such as thermally active building systems (TABS) and capillary tube systems, which have tubes embedded in the concrete layer of the building structure [2]
The novelty of this study is to evaluate the cooling performance of the conventional serpentine flow configuration, and different designs are compared under similar flow and thermal conditions
Summary
The radiant cooling panel (RCP) system has become one of the solutions to improving indoor thermal comfort, due to its low energy consumption compared to all-air systems [1].RCP provides extensive flexibility in terms of installation and zoning compared to other radiant system types, such as thermally active building systems (TABS) and capillary tube systems, which have tubes embedded in the concrete layer of the building structure [2].RCP can be placed on the ceiling of the building, as well as on the wall column inside a room. The radiant cooling panel (RCP) system has become one of the solutions to improving indoor thermal comfort, due to its low energy consumption compared to all-air systems [1]. Because of the ease of installation, RCP can be used in both new and retrofitted buildings [2]. The radiant cooling (RC) system has a condensation problem that hinders the widespread growth of this new technology [3]. The high risk of surface condensation limits the usage of radiant cooling in hot and humid areas [2]. In order to prevent the risk of surface condensation, the supply water temperature should be higher than the dew point temperature of the air inside the room [1]. Oubenmoh et al [4] conducted a numerical
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