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Heat transfer between occupied and unoccupied zone in large space building with floor-level side wall air-supply system

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Abstract

The air supply terminal located at the floor level attached to side-wall is widely used in large space buildings, leading to potential energy saving as well as significant vertical thermal stratification. The cooling load calculation of such system is challenging, especially the calculation of the load gained from unoccupied zone. This paper adopts experiment and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methods to study the heat transfer upward and downward across the stratified surface in large space building with floor-level side wall air-supply system. Five experimental cases with different heat source power and exhaust airflow ratios are performed to study their effects on the indoor thermal environment. We investigate the same cases in CFD and verify the result of vertical temperature distribution and cooling load components. As a critical parameter in evaluating the thermal stratification environment of large space building, the inter-zonal heat transfer coefficient Cb is emphatically discussed. By comparing the Cb value obtained through the two methods, the accuracy of the microscopic method is verified by the heat balance method. The results show that the Cb value is mainly affected by the zonal division and air distribution, but less prominently by exhaust airflow ratio and heat source in the occupied zone.

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Acknowledgements

The research is supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51508326); part of the work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51878408).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Environment and Architecture, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai, 200093, China

    Xinqi Yang, Haidong Wang, Chunxiao Su & Xin Wang

  2. Advanced Study Program, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, USA

    Yi Wang

  3. Research Applications Laboratory, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, USA

    Yi Wang

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  1. Xinqi Yang
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  2. Haidong Wang
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  3. Chunxiao Su
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  4. Xin Wang
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  5. Yi Wang
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Correspondence to Haidong Wang.

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Yang, X., Wang, H., Su, C. et al. Heat transfer between occupied and unoccupied zone in large space building with floor-level side wall air-supply system. Build. Simul. 13, 1221–1233 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12273-020-0639-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12273-020-0639-9

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