Performance analysis of an active diffuser in mixing ventilation for cell office by using numerical approach

Abstract

Energy efficiency in buildings is nowadays considered as an essential step to reduce CO2 emissions and energy utilization. At the same time, new technologies such as building space heating using active air heating has simplified the heating system without any need for backup heating system. This study investigated the thermal stratification of mixing ventilation system equipped with a radial active supply diffuser for space heating of an office room designed according to the Norwegian passive house standard by using Star-CCM+. Simulations were performed for different supply airflow rates with corresponding slot openings of the active diffuser at different outdoor conditions for winter season. The combined effect of the supply airflow rate and the outdoor air temperature were also described in the form of Archimedes number (Ar). The results showed that adopting active diffuser could avoid the temperature stratification for all the simulated cases by preserving the throw length of supply jet. In addition, the lowest temperature effectiveness of 38% occurred when a high supply temperature was used in the coldest day. Furthermore, with the supply temperature 24 °C, the airflow rate 49.4 l/s at the outdoor temperature -15 °C would result in a favorable average of PMV ⁓ 0.497.