Laurent Mora

Effects of Coupled Heat and Moisture Transfers through Walls upon Indoor Environment Predictions

Abstract The non-uniform behaviour of the air inside a room, which is important in comfort analysis, can be evaluated by zonal models. While not as fine-grained as CFD simulation, they do give useful information about temperature and moisture distributions that is not available from lumped-parameter models. Therefore, we have developed a tool, called SimSPARK, to automatically build dynamic zonal simulations of a building zone. Its model library includes different models to describe heat and moisture transfers across the building zone envelope, with two of them taking into account moisture adsorption/desorption by building materials. To illustrate the applicability of this tool, we compare two zonal models including adsorption and desorption processes with one that ignores these phenomena, in a ventilated room modelled using 27 cells. The results indicate that adsorption/desorption by building materials does affect indoor air behaviour in a hot and humid climate.

Effect of Free Cooling on the Operation of a Desiccant Evaporative Cooling System

Abstract Desiccant cooling is a potentially environmentally friendly technology which can be used to cool buildings without the use of traditional refrigerants. We have studied the operation of a desiccant cooling system in France. It is used to meet the cooling demand of a training room containing 40 persons. In order to decrease the system primary energy requirement, free cooling techniques are used. Models are implemented in SimSPARK a simulation environment able to solve complex problems. Simulations are run for several French cities. Results indicate that, as outdoor humidity ratio increases, regeneration energy increases. Using free cooling with ventilation and direct humidification can decrease regeneration energy requirement between 15 and 25%.