Heating, Ventilation & Air Conditioning (HVAC)

Today’s construction industry must deliver a new occupant experience that is connected, safe and comfortable while saving energy and minimising operating costs. To address these challenges, industry leaders are deploying simulation to create physics-based digital twins.

Developing heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems to maximize thermal comfort takes into account factors such as room temperature, humidity and expected occupancy, as well as heat loss through doors, windows and walls. Modeling air flow in a building is key to creating the best design of a HVAC system, considering performance, energy efficiency and cost.

When considering Built Environments, our Ansys CFD software capabilities and consulting services can address ventilation challenges within offices, data centres, hospitals, cleanrooms, manufacturing plants, boiler plants, entertainment venues and parking garages.

In the healthcare and electronics industries, process contamination is a primary concern. They manufacture these sensitive products in clean rooms where the concentration of airborne particles is controlled to specified limits, such as BS EN ISO 14644-1. Even in controlled environments, particles are constantly being created and can settle on and contaminate surfaces and products.

Traditional cleanroom and hygienic zone design has relied on historic design rules and experience, with assessment and validation against ISO standards and other regulatory conditions only possible at advanced stages through smoke tests and sensors following mock-up or construction.

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) enables air flow within clean environments to be simulated during both concept and detailed design, providing visualisation, insight and guidance into:

• Dead spots of flow / stagnant zone where particulates or bio-material may settle
• Air temperatures due to heat sources within the room
• How to reduce energy consumption and number of air changes required per hour
• Ventilation design – where to position diffusers and vents
• Ideal positioning of sensors
• Comparative flow distribution for smoke test validation

As a “virtual smoke test”, air flow modelling enables multiple design iterations to be performed before significant cost or time is incurred, such as evaluating alternative vent and diffuser arrangements.

Furthermore, it provides much more data to assist your design decisions than a smoke test can alone. Indeed, air flow modelling can even be a valuable tool during proposals to give you and your end users confidence in the concepts put forward.

If you are involved in proposing, designing or modifying cleanrooms and hygienic zones (within manufacturing facilities), we can help you either develop your own inhouse air flow modelling capabilities or support your engineering activies through our comprehensive simulation consulting services.

As Ansys and Flownex simulation partners, we have extensive 1D and 3D mechanical, fluids and multiphysics tools to a model a wide range of HVAC equipment and related systems, including:

• Air cleaning equipment
• Air conditioners
• Air handlers
• Burner design/boilers
• Chillers
• Diffusers
• Heat exchangers/coils
• Humidifiers/dehumidifiers
• Heating equipment
• Pumps/blowers, fans and compressors/exhausters
• Refrigeration