Selecting HVAC systems for typical UK office buildings

The energy performance of different HVAC systems varies, and, more importantly, is dependent to the characteristics of the building. To select a suitable HVAC system for a particular building at early design stages presents a significant challenge to engineers. In this paper, we use a typical open-plan UK office building to analyse the correlation between its dynamic load profile and the performance of various HVAC systems. EnergyPlus models of the building and the systems are created. A number of parameters (e.g. insulation level, HVAC system types, supply air temperature setpoint and fresh air supply) that affect the heating/cooling energy consumption are varied. By running a series of experiments and analysing the results, we aim to provide guidelines to assist the selection of HVAC systems for UK office buildings

Integrated model of horizontal earth pipe cooling system for a hot humid climate

Rasul, M ORCiD: 0000-0001-8159-1321Energy efficiency of a building has become a major requirement since the building sector produces 40%–50% of the global greenhouse gas emissions. This can be achieved by improving building’s performance through energy savings, by adopting energy-efficient technologies and by reducing CO2emissions. There exist several technologies with less or no environmental impact that can be used to reduce energy consumption of the buildings. Earth pipe cooling system is one of them, which works with a long buried pipe with one end for intaking air and the other end for providing air cooled by soil to the building. It is an approach for cooling a room in a passive process without using any habitual mechanical unit. The paper investigates the thermal performance of a horizontal earth pipe cooling system in a hot and humid subtropical climatic zone in Queensland, Australia. An integrated numerical model for the horizontal earth pipe cooling system and the room (or building) was developed using ANSYS Fluent to measure the thermal performance of the system. The impact of air temperature, soil temperature, air velocity and relative humidity on room cooling performance has also been assessed. As the soil temperature was below the outdoor minimum temperature during the peak warming hours of the day, it worked as an effective heat sink to cool the room. Both experimental and numerical results showed a temperature reduction of 1.11, °C in the room utilizing horizontal earth pipe cooling system which will assist to save the energy cost in the buildings. © Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018