Whether the challenge is a complex building geometry, naturally ventilated spaces, or designing to achieve stricter energy performance standards, CFD will help optimise heating/ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) designs and provide the information needed to understand airflows and thermal performance in buildings.
Complex physics is only part of the challenge with HVAC flows. Often, the results need to be understood by a non-technical audience. At Element Energy our clear, high-quality visuals are often supplemented with animations to ensure the client understands the proposed solution.
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Mechanical ventilation
In large spaces, mechanical ventilation can result in complex flowfields. CFD can be used to identify stagnant zones, hot or cold spots, and uncomfortably high velocities. The same model can be used to cost-effectively analyse and choose appropriate solutions.
- Natural ventilation
Naturally ventilated flows are often a complex mix of wind-driven and thermal(buoyancy)-driven effects. CFD can represent all of the important phenomena in these flows, including solar-driven heating, radiant comfort, external/internal flows, and thermal mass. We can couple our analysis to time-dependent zonal models to analyse the effect of ground-source heating and cooling.
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