DA-00-03-1 (RP-927) -- A Coupled Airflow and Energy Simulation Program for Indoor Thermal Environmental Studies

Design of a thermally comfortable indoor environment requires detailed information about distribution of air velocity, air temperature, relative humidity, and mean radiant temper-ature and about the heating/cooling load in a space. This research has developed a coupled airflow and energy simula-tion program to calculate simultaneously the distributions of indoor airflow and thermal comfort and heating/cooling load. The coupled program can take the nonuniform distributions of indoor airflow and heating/cooling load into account. The program can also provide thermal and fluid boundary condi-tions normally needed for room airflow calculation. This paper demonstrates the program's capacity by applying the program to study the thermal environment in a house and an atrium. The coupled flow-and-energy program is recom-mended for the design of radiative, convective, and hybrid heating and cooling systems.

Units: Dual