Construction and realization of the knowledge base and inference engine of an IDSS model for air-conditioning cooling/heating sources selection

The knowledge representation mode and inference control strategy were analyzed according to the specialties of air-conditioning cooling/heating sources selection. The constructing idea and working procedure for knowledge base and inference engine were proposed while the realization technique of the C language was discussed. An intelligent decision support system (IDSS) model based on such knowledge representation and inference mechanism was developed by domain engineers. The model was verified to have a small kernel and powerful capability in list processing and data driving, which was successfully used in the design of a cooling/heating sources system for a large-sized office building.

Application of water loop variable refrigerant flow air-conditioning system in large-scale buildings in northern China

A water loop variable refrigerant flow（WLVRF）air-conditioning system is designed to be applied in large-scale buildings in northern China.The system is energy saving and it is an integrated system consisting of a variable refrigerant flow（VRF）air-conditioning unit,a water loop and an air source heat pump.The water loop transports energy among different regions in the buildings instead of refrigerant pipes,decreasing the scale of the VRF air-conditioning unit and improving the performance.Previous models for refrigerants and building loads are cited in this investigation.Mathematical models of major equipment and other elements of the system are established using the lumped parameter method based on the DATAFIT software and the MATLAB software.The performance of the WLVRF system is simulated.The initial investments and the running costs are calculated based on the results of market research.Finally,a contrast is carried out between the WLVRF system and the traditional VRF system.The results show that the WLVRF system has a better working condition and lower running costs than the traditional VRF system.

Physical modelling and scale effects of air-water flows on stepped spillways

During the last three decades, the introduction of new construction materials (e.g. RCC (Roller Compacted Concrete), strengthened gabions) has increased the interest for stepped channels and spillways. However stepped chute hydraulics is not simple, because of different flow regimes and importantly because of very-strong interactions between entrained air and turbu- lence. In this study, new air-water flow measurements were conducted in two large-size stepped chute facilities with two step heights in each facility to study experimental distortion caused by scale effects and the soundness of result extrapolation to pro- totypes. Experimental data included distributions of air concentration, air-water flow velocity, bubble frequency, bubble chord length and air-water flow turbulence intensity. For a Froude similitude, the results implied that scale effects were observed in both facilities, although the geometric scaling ratio was only Lr=2 in each case. The selection of the criterion for scale effects is a critical issue. For example, major differences (i.e. scale effects) were observed in terms of bubble chord sizes and turbulence levels al- though little scale effects were seen in terms of void fraction and velocity distributions. Overall the findings emphasize that physical modelling of stepped chutes based upon a Froude similitude is more sensitive to scale effects than classical smooth-invert chute studies, and this is consistent with basic dimensional analysis developed herein.

AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY ON TURBULENT COHERENT STRUCTURES NEAR A SHEARED AIR-WATER INTERFACE

The turbulence structures near a sheared air-water interface were experimentally investigated with the hydrogen bubble visualization technique. Surface shear was imposed by an airflow over the water flow which was kept free from surface waves. Results show that the wind shear has the main influence on coherent structures under air-water interfaces. Low- and high- speed streaks form in the region close to the interface as a result of the imposed shear stress. When a certain airflow velocity is reached, “turbulent spots” appear randomly at low-speed streaks with some characteristics of hairpin vortices. At even higher shear rates, the flow near the interface is dominated primarily by intermittent bursting events. The coherent structures observed near sheared air-water interfaces show qualitative similarities with those occurring in near-wall turbulence. However, a few distinctive phenomena were also observed, including the fluctuating thickness of the instantaneous boundary layer and vertical vortices in bursting processes, which appear to be associated with the characteristics of air-water interfaces.

Entropy Assessment on Environmental Influence of Condense Heat in Recovery System in Air-Conditioning Refrigerating Machine

This paper presented an entropy evaluation method for the influences of condense heat recovery system on the environment.Aiming at the damage of the condense heat to the environment,an entropy of resource loss and an emission entropy from the condense heat recovery system in the air conditioning refrigerating machine were introduced.For the evaluation of the entropies,we developed a new algorithm for the parameter identification,called the composite influence coefficient,based on the Least Squares Support Vector Machine method.By simulation,the numerical experiments shows that the Least Squares Support Vector Machine method is one of the powerful methods for the parameter identification to compute the damage entropy of the condense heat,with the largest training error being-0.025(the relative error being-3.56%),and the biggest test error being 0.015(the relative error being 2.5%).

Impact of summer office set air-conditioning temperature on energy consumption and thermal comfort

To explore the relationship between summer office set air-conditioning temperature and energy consumption related to air conditioning use to provide human thermal comfort,a comparison experiment was conducted in three similar offices at temperatures of 24,26 and 28 ℃ respectively. A thermal comfort questionnaire survey was conducted. It is demonstrated that air-conditioner energy consumption at the set temperature of 28 ℃ is 113% and 271% lower than at 26 ℃ and 24 ℃,respectively. A linear relationship exists between air-conditioner energy consumption and the indoor and outdoor temperature difference. When comfortably dressed,over 80% of research participants accept the set temperature of 28 ℃. The regression analysis leads to a neutral temperature of 26.2 ℃ and an acceptable temperature of 28.2 ℃ for over 80% of the research participants subjects,indicating that the current 26 ℃ set temperature for offices in summer,required by Chinese General Office of the State Council,can be increased to 28 ℃. Moreover,analysis of predicted mean vote(PMV) index shows that a set temperature of 27 ℃,not 26 ℃,is sufficiently comfortable for office staff wearing long-sleeve shirts,long pants and leather shoes.

Genetic Optimization Algorithm of PID Decoupling Control for VAV Air-Conditioning System

Variable-air-volume (VAV) air-conditioning system is a multi-variable system and has multi coupling control loops. While all of the control loops are working together, they interfere and influence each other. A multivariable decoupling PID controller is designed for VAV air-conditioning system. Diagonal matrix decoupling method is employed to eliminate the coupling between the loop of supply air temperature and that of thermal-space air temperature. The PID controller parameters are optimized by means of an improved genetic algorithm in floating point representations to obtain better performance. The population in the improved genetic algorithm mutates before crossover, which is helpful for the convergence. Additionally the micro mutation algorithm is proposed and applied to improve the convergence during the later evolution. To search the best parameters, the optimized parameters ranges should be amplified 10 times the initial ideal parameters. The simulation and experiment results show that the decoupling control system is effective and feasible. The method can overcome the strong coupling feature of the system and has shorter governing time and less over-shoot than non-optimization PID control.

SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF LOW-SPEED STREAKS UNDER SHEARED AIR-WATER INTERFACES

The characteristics of low-speed fluid streaks occurring under sheared air-water interfaces were examined by means of hydrogen bubble visualization technique. A critical shear condition under which the streaky structure first appears was determined to be u(tau) approximate to 0.19 cm/s. The mean spanwise streak spacing increases with distance from the water surface owing to merging and bursting processes, and a linear relationship describing variation of non-dimensional spacing <(<lambda>+)over bar> versus y(+) was found essentially independent of shear stress on the interface. Values of <(<lambda>+)over bar>, however, are remarkably smaller than their counterparts in the near-wall region of turbulent boundary layers. Though low-speed streaks occur randomly in time and space, the streak spacing exhibits a lognormal probability distribution behavior. A tentative explanation concerning the formation of streaky structure is suggested, and the fact that <(<lambda>+)over bar> takes rather smaller values than that in wall turbulence is briefly discussed.

Numerical Investigation of Transmission of Low Frequency Sound Through a Smooth Air-water Interface

It is the traditional belief that sound transmission from water to the air is very weak due to a large contrast between air and water impedances. Recently, the enhanced sound transmission and anomalous transparency of air-water interface have been introduced. Anomalous transparency of air-water interface states that the sound generated by a submerged shallow depth monopole point source localized at depths less than 1/10 sound wavelength, can be transmitted into the air with omni-directional pattern. The generated sound has 35 times higher power compared to the classical ray theory prediction. In this paper, sound transmission through air-water interface for a localized underwater shallow depth source is examined. To accomplish this, two-phase coupled Helmholtz wave equations in two-phase media of air-water are solved by the commercial finite element based COMSOL Multiphysics software. Ratios of pressure amplitudes of different sound sources in two different underwater and air coordinates are computed and analyzed against non-dimensional ratio of the source depth （D） to the sound wavelength （λ）. The obtained results are compared with the experimental data and good agreement is displayed.

Carbon dioxide partial pressure and carbon fluxes of air-water interface in Taihu Lake, China

To obtain carbon dioxide （CO2） flux between water-air interface of Taihu lake, monthly water samplers at 14 sites and the local meteorological data of the lake were collected and analyzed in 1998. Carbon dioxide partial pressures （pCO2） at air-water interface in the lake were calculated using alkalinity, pH, ionic strength, active coefficient, and water temperature. The carbon fluxes at different sublakes and areas were estimated by concentration gradient between water and air in consideration of Schmidt numbers of 600 and daily mean windspeed at 10 m above water surface. The results indicated that the mean values of pCO2 in Wuli Lake,Meiliang Bay, hydrophyte area, west littoral zone, riverine mouths, and the open lake areas were 1 807.8±1 071.4（mean±standard deviation）μatm （latm=1.013 25×10^5pa）, 416.3±217.0μatm, 576.5±758.8μatm, 304.2±9.43.5μatm, 1 933.6±1 144.7 μatm, and 448.5±202.6μatm, respectively. Maximum and minimum pCO2 values were found in the hypertrophic （4 053.7μatm） and the eutrophic （3.2 μatm） areas. The riverine mouth areas have the maximum fluxes （82.0±62.8 mmol/m^2a）. But there was no significant difference between eutrophic and mesotrophic areas in pCO2 and the flux of CO2. The hydrophyte area, however, has the minimum （--0.58±12.9mmol/m^2a）. In respect to CO2 equilibrium, input of the rivers will obviously influence inorganic carbon distribution in the riverine estuary. For example, the annual mean CO2 flux in Zhihugang River estuary was 19 times of that in Meiliang Bay, although the former is only a part of the latter. The sites in the body of the lake show a clear seasonal cycle with pCO2 higher than atmospheric equilibrium in winter, and much lower than atmospheric in summer due to CO2 consumption by photosynthesis. The CO2 amount of the net annual evasion that enters the atmosphere is 28.42×10^4 t/a, of which those from the west littoral zone and the open lake account for 53.8% and 36.7%, respectively.

Selection of Weather Parameters for Air-Conditioning System Design for Buildings with Long Thermal Lag

Two building factors-a longer thermal lag of more than one hour for building envelops and a lag of indoor radiation to convert into cooling load-have impact on the instantaneous heat input and instantaneous cooling load.So the two factors should be taken into account when selecting the weather parameters for air-conditioning system design.This paper developed a new statistic method for the rational selection of coincident solar irradiance,dry-bulb and wet-bulb temperatures.The method was applied to historic weather records of 25 years in Hong Kong to generate coincident design weather data.And the results show that traditional design solar irradiance,dry-bulb and wet-bulb temperatures may be significantly overestimated in many conditions,and the design weather data for the three different constructions is not kept constant.

The Experiment and Simulation of Solid Desiccant Dehumidification for Air-Conditioning System in a Tropical Humid Climate

The aim of this research was to study and design a solid desiccant dehumidification system suitable for tropical climate to reduce the latent load of air-conditioning system and improve the thermal comfort. Different dehumidifiers such as desiccant column and desiccant wheel were investigated. The ANSYS and TRASYS software were used to predict the results of dehumidifiers and the desiccant cooling systems, respectively. The desiccant bed contained approximately 15 kg of silica-gel, with 3 mm average diameter. Results indicated that the pressure drop and the adsorption rate of desiccant column are usually higher than those of the desiccant wheel. The feasible and practical adsorption rate of desiccant wheel was 0.102 kgw/h at air flow rate 1.0 kg/min, regenerated air temperature of 55?C and at a wheel speed of 2.5 rpm. The humidity ratio of conditioning space and cooling load of split-type air conditioner was decreased to 0.002 kgw/kgda (14%) and 0.71 kWth (19.26%), respectively. Consequently, the thermal comfort was improved from 0.5 PMV (10.12% PPD) to 0.3 PMV (7.04% PPD).

An Energy-Saving Control Strategy on Central Air-Conditioning System

An energy-saving control strategy based on predictive control for central air-conditioning systems is proposed in this paper. The cold load model is developed to describe the dynamic characteristics of temperature control systems, and then parameters in the cold load model and in the central air-conditioning system model are estimated. Generalized predictive control (GPC) is used to establish an optimization model to minimize the consumption of energy and the control error of temperature. The simulated annealing (SA) algorithm, combined with quadratic programming, is adopted to solve the optimal problem. Contrasted with the simulation of traditional PID control, the results prove the effectiveness of this proposed strategy.

Application of Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation to Air-conditioning Competitive Power Analysis

As the conceptual design of air-conditioning is done using the theory of Quality Function Deployment (QFD),cus- tomer requirements should be understood and the product competitive power be analyzed as exactly as possible for new product de- signing.Lots of information in the process of this research is fuzzy and uncertain,but traditional QFD can not deal with it well. Fuzzy theory can solve the problem.So a fuzzy model for analyzing product competitive power is formulated in this paper to im- prove traditional QFD,after that it is applied to analyze air-conditioning competitive power.When air-conditioning competitive power is analyzed using this model,firstly the importance weight of the customer requirements o fair-conditioning is determined us- ing the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) weighting process,then air-conditloning competitive power is evaluated using fuzzy comprehensive evaluation.It is proved that the model is feasible and has good applicability.

A COUPLING THREE DIMENSIONAL BAROCLINIC MODEL OF BIWA LAKE AIR-WATER SYSTEM

A numerical model coupling atmosphere with hydrodynamics is set up in this paper, and is applied in the experimental study of Lake Biwa. Some results are obtained as : (1) whatever (SSW) in sunimer or (NNW) in winer, there exists a positive wind-stress curl over a lake; (2) in summer the positive wind-stress curi plays an important role to form circulation in a lake and produces a special temperature field corresponding to circulation, lower in the deep water, higher in the shallow water; (3) in summer, the hypothesis of initial horizontal inhomogeneous water temperature has little effiect on the results of simulation, and (4) in winter,there is no obvious circulation formed in the lake.

Characteristics of air-water flow in an emptying tank under different conditions

This paper experimentally studied the features of air-water flow during the emptying of a water-filled prismatic tank with a bottom orifice under different conditions.The experiments were conducted with both circular and elliptical orifices,with and without ventilation.The evolution of bubbles,water pressure variation,and water level change with time were recorded in the experiments and analyzed.Based on the results,the evolution of bubbles could be mainly divided into three stages of formation,deformation,and decomposition.Ventilation was found important to the emptying process,with which the drainage efficiency was much higher than that under the unventilated condition.Additionally,under the unventilated condition,the drainage efficiency with the circular orifice was slightly higher than that with the elliptical orifice.

Application of Dual Throttling Air-Conditioning System to Explosion-Proof Frequency Converter

An explosion-proof dual throttling air-conditioning system was put forward to solve the heat dissipation and internal dewing problems of explosion-proof frequency converter in the underground coal mine. This study investigated the feasibility and benefits of explosion-proof dual throttling cooling and dehumidification air-conditioning system applied to the explosion-proof frequency converter. The physical model of dual throttling air-conditioning system was established and its performance parameter was described by mathematical method. The design calculation of the system has also been done. The experimental result showed that the system reached the steady state at the refrigeration mode after running 45 min, and the maximum internal temperature of the flame-proof cavity was 31.0 ℃. The system reached the steady state at the dehumidification mode after running 37 min. The maximum internal relative humidity and temperature of the flame-proof cavity were 33.4% and 36.3 ℃, respectively. Therefore, the proposed system had excellent ability of heat dissipation and avoided internal dewing. Compared with water cooling system, it was more energy-saving and economical. The airflow field of dual throttling air-conditioning system was also studied by CFD simulation. It was found that the result of CFD numerical simulation was highly consistent with the experimental data.

Simulation of Artificial Intelligence for Automotive Air-conditioning System

The artificial intelligence is applied to the simulation of the automotive air-conditioning system ( AACS )According to the system's characteristics a model of AACS, based on neural network, is developed. Different control methods of AACS are discussed through simulation based on this model. The result shows that the neural- fuzzy control is the best one compared with the on-off control and conventional fuzzy control method.It can make the compartment's temperature descend rapidly to the designed temperature and the fluctuation is small.

Energy performance assessment on central air-conditioning system of commercial building: A case study in China

Energy performance assessment on central air-conditioning system is essential to optimize operating, reduce operating costs, improve indoor environmental quality, and determine whether the retrofitting of the equipment is necessary. But it is difficult to evaluate it reasonably and comprehensively due to its complexity. A "holistic" approach was discussed to evaluate the energy performance of central air-conditioning system for an extra-large commercial building in a subtropical city. All procedures were described in detail, including field investigation method, field measurement instruments, data processing and data analyzing. The main factors affecting energy consumption of air-conditioning system were analyzed and the annual cooling-energy use intensity of this building was calculated and also compared with other shopping malls and other types of buildings in Guangzhou. And COP(coefficient of performance) of chiller, water transfer factor of chilled water system and cooling water system were taken into consideration. At last, the thermal comfort and indoor air quality issues were addressed. The results show that the chilled water pumps are over-sized and the indoor environmental quality should be improved. The purpose of this work is to provide reference for energy performance assessment method for air-conditioning system.

PREPARATION OF PERFLUOROOCTANOYL-MODIFIED POLY(VINYL-ALCOHOL)S AND THEIR ADSORPTION AT AN AIR-WATER INTERFACE

Perfluorooctanoyl modified poly(vinyl alcohol)s (FPVA) were prepared by means of substituting a small amount of hydroxyl groups on the backbone of poly(vinyl alcohol), for which the initial degree of polymerization is equal to 1750. The substitution extent, defined by the number of substituting units in a chain, for the four FPVA samples was in the range of 0.5-5 perfluorooctanoyl groups per chain. The FPVA samples with the highest substitution extent still had good solubility in water. It was shown by experimental measurement at 30.0 +/- 0.1 degreesC that the surface tension of the aqueous solution of the highest substituted FPVA decreased to 16.6 mN/m at a higher concentration, e.g. about 0.1 g/mL. Obviously, macromolecules of FPVA exhibit a very strong tendency to adsorb at the air-water interface, because the hydrophobic perfluorooctanoyl groups in FPVA have a very high surface activity as they are in small molecular fluorinated surfactants. The chain conformation of such a model polymer adsorbed on the air-water interface was also discussed.