CFD simulation and evaluation of different heating systems installed in low energy building located in sub-arctic climate

Publication date: July 2015
Source:Building and Environment, Volume 89
Author(s): Daniel Risberg , Mattias Vesterlund , Lars Westerlund , Jan Dahl
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations were used to study the indoor climate in a low energy building in northern Sweden. The building's low heat requirement raise the prospect of using a relatively simple and inexpensive heating system to maintain an acceptable indoor environment, even in the face of extremely low outdoor temperature. To explore the viability of this approach, the indoor climate in the building was studied considering three different heating systems: a floor heating system, air heating through the ventilation system and an air heat pump installation with one fan coil unit. The floor heating system provided the most uniform operative temperature distribution and was the only heating system that fully satisfied the recommendations to achieve tolerable indoor climate set by the Swedish authorities. On the contrary, air heating and the air heat pump created a relatively uneven distribution of air velocities and temperatures, and none of them fulfills the specified recommendations. From the economic point of view, the air heat pump system was cheaper to be installed but produced a less pleasant indoor environment than the other investigated heating systems.