HVAC simulation

XFlow thermal solver can be used to simulate the heating, air-conditioning and ventilation of indoor spaces. With the help of sensors which monitor the flow variables in specified locations, XFlow is a suitable tool to optimize the location of HVAC devices for occupants' thermal comfort.
The video shows the volumetric field of temperature and massless markers convected by the flow.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• XFlow CFD
• XFlowCFD
• XFlow
• Computational Fluid Dynamics
• HVAC simulation
• office

[vishweshdandekar]

This looks quite interesting and impressive. I like this. :-)

I was curious to know, if there are any experimental validations done using XFlowCFD?

How is this different from Exa PowerFlow?

As per my understanding the particle based lattice boltzman approach works mainly for compressible flows? Is this similar to SPH? Can this handle in-compressible fluids?

Thanks,

Vishwesh

[XFlowCFD]

@vishweshdandekar

Hi Vishwesh,

Yes, XFlow has been validated in a number of academic and industrial benchmark cases.

Regarding comparison with PowerFLOW, both software use a totally different implementation of Lattice Boltzmann. XFlow is general purpose (aerodynamics, free surface, thermal analysis, porous media, aeroacoustics, non-Newtonian flows) with special focus on moving parts. In addition, XFlow can model a large range of Mach numbers (from incompressible to compressible flows).

[XFlowCFD]

Hi Jeff,

The solver is intrinsically transient, therefore XFlow does not provide a steady-state solution. You can track the flow variables at the sensors and check that the flow has reached stable conditions.

This simulation run around 10 hours in a Windows workstation (Intel Xeon E5620 @ 2.40Ghz, 8 cores).

The post-processing is all done in XFlow. It has powerful rendering capabilities.

[lifeupfront]

Beautiful. Really.

A few questions:

1) How do you arrive at psuedo-steady-state bulk temperatures/velocities at the sensor points?

2) How do you assess when you've reached psuedo-steady-state?

3) How long did it take to solve this (and on what kind of computer hardware?)

4) I see nice shadows under the chairs, etc. Was all this post-processing done with your standard XFlow tools, or exported to some other rendering package?

Thanks,

Jeff