Authors

Abstract

This research is concerned with a computational study to simulate a turbulent three
–dimensional buoyancy recirculation flow in an air-conditioned space. The study
includes the simulation of heat and moisture generated from an internal source inside the
space. An experimental facility to study temperature and moisture distribution in an airconditioned
space has also been designed, constructed and tested in a laboratory scale. A
numerical procedure was carried out to solve the elliptic partial differential equations that
govern the flow, heat and mass transfer in a finite –volume form. The finite -volume
approach was applied to solve these equations using the upwind –differencing scheme.
The SIMPLE iterative procedure [1] for solving the algebraic equations is employed in
the present study. The proposed method is the line by line technique uses the Tri-
Diagonal Matrix Algorithm (TDMA) as its basic unit. A modified version of a threedimensional
elliptic computer code was used to simulate heat and moisture transfer
generated from the internal source inside the space. A study of the flow, heat and mass
transfer in air-conditioned space are used as test cases to justify the performance of the
computational procedure. The temperature and moisture distribution were compared with
predictions of previous researchers. The data from the experimental model was also used
to verify the computational procedure predictions.

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