Seminar 59 -- Don’t Be Scared: CFD for Everyday Design PDF

Track: Fundamentals and Applications
Sponsor: 4.10 Indoor Environmental Modeling
Chair: James W. VanGilder, P.E., Member, Schneider Electric, Andover, MA
CFD is no longer exotic technology used only by ivory-tower experts. It is commonly employed by engineers for routine design of indoor environments ranging from commercial spaces to data centers. This seminar highlights the practical side of CFD through examples such as assessing thermal comfort in general occupied spaces to determining the optimal throw angle for a chilled beam system to using sensitivity analysis to create a robust data center design that performs well under imprecisely-known IT configurations and heat loads.

1. Using CFD Modeling for HVAC System Design
Steven Thomasson, Price Industries Limited, Winnipeg, MB, Canada
This presentation focuses on the use of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling to predict the performance of an air distribution system inside the built environment. The presentation provides an introduction to CFD and how it can be used effectively to study thermal comfort and indoor air quality. A broad range of examples will demonstrate how CFD can be used to tackle common design challenges in the indoor environment including thermal comfort optimization, enhancement of indoor air quality and air volume reduction, all with the aim of reducing the size and energy usage of the air distribution systems.

2. Practical Applications of CFD for Optimizing Chilled Beam Performance
Ramin Rezaei, Associate Member, Southland Industries, Dulles, VA
Chilled beam systems have been used in Europe for many years, but they've only started to be used recently in the United States. In this study, the effect of the active chilled beam systems on flow and temperature distribution in a typical room with occupants has been investigated using CFD. This presentation explains how a detailed three-dimensional analysis helped find an optimum throw angle for mixed supply air ensuring the thermal comfort level and reducing draft risk in the room.

3. Garbage In, Garbage Out: Is Conceptual Data Center CFD Design Any Use?
Mark Seymour, CEng, Member, Future Facilities Ltd, London, United Kingdom
CFD is commonly used for data center design and operational planning. It provides confidence in routine and innovative designs and enables change in a risk averse operational environment. Yet still more do not take advantage of this technology. One barrier is that accurate prediction for an operational data center requires detailed models. In contrast the designer often doesn't know what the IT configuration will be. So will garbage in be garbage out? This seminar uses simplified studies to show that sensitivity analysis enables the designer to identify efficient and effective designs perform well despite the uncertainties in IT load/configuration.

Presented: June 28, 2017, 11:00 AM-12:30 PM
Run Time: 90 min.

This is a zip file that consists of PowerPoint slides synchronized with the audio-recording of the speaker (recorded presentation), PDF files of the slides, and audio only (mp3) for each presentation.