Thermo-flow performance analysis of split air conditioner under high-speed winds around buildings

Abstract

ABSTRACT Air-cooled condensers are predominantly used in condensing units of split air conditioning systems. These units are mostly installed on terraces or on outer walls of buildings. In case of tall buildings, the performance of air-cooled condenser is greatly affected by high-speed winds. Present work deals with a numerical study predicting the influence of high-speed winds on the performance of split air conditioning systems whose condensing units are installed on outer walls of buildings using mounting brackets. Simulation tools viz. ANSYS Fluent and VapCyc are employed in this work in order to obtain air flow and thermal characteristics of the condensing unit. Simulation results show that the thermo-flow performance of the split air conditioning system deteriorates significantly with high-speed winds due to an increase in the temperature of air entering the condensing unit and inferior air flow rates in the condensing unit. It is observed that the cooling capacity and coefficient of performance of the air conditioning system are reduced by 11% and 35%, respectively, when wind speed is 12.3 m/s in comparison with the baseline case.