Additional information and a detailed discussion of calculating the cooling and heating loads in a space

can be found in the Air Conditioning Contractors Association (ACCA) Manual N for Commercial Load
Calculation, and through ASHRAE TC-4.0 Technical Committee for Load Calculations.

Conventional air conditioning (AC) systems have limited control of sensible cooling and latent cooling
capacities; therefore additional energy-consuming devices, i.e. electric heaters, are often used to
reheat the conditioned air in order to provide thermal comfort for the building occupants. Separate
sensible and latent cooling (SSLC) AC systems are capable of providing better control of cooling at no
extra overload in the form of energy input. Moreover, because of a higher coefficient of performance
(COP) in the sensible cooling cycle, the SSLC technology reduces total energy input to vapor
compression systems (VCS), and makes AC systems more energy efficient. This dissertation explores
and compares two main methods for implementing the SSLC concept: cycle options for SSLC systems
and methods of indoor heat transfer. One of these options consists of two independent VCS, and the
other consists of one VCS removing sensible load only and one solid desiccant wheel (DW)
regenerated with the waste heat from the VCS. The objectives of the system option study are to
understand the reasons behind energy savings and explore the best possible configurations of SSLC
systems in different summer outdoor conditions. The simulation results of the first kind of SSLC
system show that the energy savings come from a reduced compressor power input of the sensible
cycle. Under wide ranging ambient conditions, the amount of energy savings varies from 22% to 50%
over conventional system energy input. However, such a system has limited independence of varying
sensible to latent load ratio and the extra cost of an internal heat exchanger. The integration of VCS
and DW overcomes these limitations. An experimental setup was constructed in an environmental
chamber to test the performance of the second kind of SSLC system using carbon dioxide as
refrigerant. The experimental results show only a 7% improvement by using SSLC systems, and two
negative factors hindering SSLC systems from achieving more energy savings were later identified. As
a result, the application of divided heat exchangers is proposed as a solution to address one of the
issues. An optimal SSLC system, which incorporates the application of divided heat exchangers, an
enthalpy wheel and other energy-saving methods, was modeled and demonstrated a doubling of the
COP as compared to a conventional AC system. The second method crucial to implementing SSLC is a
so called "low ΔT indoor heat exchanger" which is being introduced as an improved sensible
heat exchanger design for the successful implementation of SSLC system concept. Its capability of
providing both radiative heat transfer and convective heat transfer leads to better thermal comfort to
occupants. Compared to the baseline fan-coil unit, the low ΔT indoor heat exchanger creates
better thermal comfort in terms of reducing temperature stratification from head to feet by 0.8 K and
providing higher operative temperature at the foot level in winter. Numerical models were developed
to simulate the operative temperature field created by the low ΔT indoor heat exchanger. The
model had only an average deviation of 0.4 K compared to the experimental data. The air
temperature simulation in the model was later replaced by the proper orthogonal decomposition
(POD) method. The POD method provides simulation results almost identical to CFD simulation
(maximum deviation of 0.1 K), and moreover reduces the computation time from 24 hours to only
minutes.
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/1903/11862
Appears in Collections: Mechanical Engineering Theses and
Dissertations
UMD Theses and Dissertations