Cross Ventilation for Swamp Cooler cooling ANSYS Fluent CFD Simulation Training

Description

Cross Ventilation Project Description

The problem simulates the airflow around the outer body of swamp coolers as cross ventilation via ANSYS Fluent software. We perform this CFD project and investigate it by CFD analysis.

We design the present 3-D model using Design Modeler software. The model meshing has been done using ANSYS Meshing software. The mesh type is unstructured, and the element number is 84594.

The performance of water cooler systems is such that the outside, warm air is sucked into their building and meets the pumped water flows in the cooler.

The water flow receives the latent heat it needs to evaporate from the perceptible heat of the incoming airflow, and as a result, it evaporates. In this way, the air loses its temperature as it loses its heat, and on the other hand, it gets wet by mixing with the water vapor from evaporation.

Therefore, cool, humid air enters the room through the air conditioner vents. There are several ways to increase the efficiency of this type of air conditioner and reduce its consumption.

One way to increase efficiency is to create turbulent air around the outside walls of the air conditioner, which we can make possible by creating a special air circulation space like a windcatcher.

Due to its structure, this windcatcher can completely circulate the air inside and around the outer body of the air conditioner. As a result, cooling these warm exterior walls strengthens and accelerates the water flow’s evaporation process and reduces air temperature.

The present CFD simulation assumes that all external faces of these three coolers have a constant thermal flux equal to 200 W.m-2.  Airflow enters the space around the three coolers at a velocity of 5 m/s and a temperature of 292 K from the windshield inlet of the air conditioners. The cooling process takes place by cooling the air circulation in this area.

Methodology

We use the Standard Wall Function and K-epsilon Standard model for the turbulence equation. Also, the Energy equation is On to capture the temperature.

Cross Ventilation Results

After the solution, we obtain 2D and 3D contours related to pressure, temperature, and velocity. We also obtain 2D and 3D velocity vectors. We draw 2D contours and vectors in two sections, YZ and XZ.