This paper describes the objectives and research methodology of a 30-month research project carried out under the European JOULE programme with the involvement of seven countries with cold or temperate climate. The project aims to contribute to reducing energy consumption and consequent C02 emission in buildings by overcoming barriers preventing the wider uptake of technologies for natural ventilation (NV) and low-energy cooling and encouraging and accelerating environmentally-friendly natural ventilation and 'smart' controls as a main design option.
The purpose of this paper is to present the energy required to condition a constant volumetric airflow and determine the variability of this energy due to changes in the design dry bulb and humidity setpoints. Hourly weather data from a typical year from 32 European locations and long-term data from 11 American locations were analyzed to determine the coincident dry-bulb and dew-point temperatures. These data were then analyzed to determine the heating, cooling and moisture removal energy requirements for a constant mass of airflow per hour.
Thermoeconomics is a blend of thermodynamics with economics. The thermodynamic analysis uses the second law and the concept of exergy, the measure of usefulness of energy. Economics involves costing exergy flows in life costing techniques. The objective of thermoeconomics is to minimise a cost function, talcing into account capital, maintenance and running costs. Most of these are expressed in terms of thermodynamic variables of the system. This will establish the most cost effective design parameters.
Two residential sized air conditioners were tested in psychrometric rooms at reduced evaporator airflows ranging from 0 to 50% below that recommended by the manufacture of each of the units. Outdoor temperatures ranged from 35 to 49 °C. One of the units used a thermal expansion valve for flow control while the other unit used in short tube orifice. Performance of the units was quantified by the capacity, power, coefficient of performance, and sensible heat ratio.
Research over the past five years has indicated that a significant majority of the cost of residential retrofit duct sealing is in the labor required to find and seal those leaks. This paper describes the results of a field investigation of the performance and practicality of sealing residential duct leaks from the inside by means of a technique based upon injecting a fine aerosol spray into the duct system. The field results presented are from 4 7 houses located in Florida.
In an effort to optimize the energy performance of existing single-family housing, the Advanced Retrofit pilot program was sponsored by Massachusetts Electric and administered by Conservation Services Group. The intent of the program was to advance the direction of energy conservation by achieving the highest energy savings possible, by combining field experience with innovative technologies in electrically heated homes. Cost-effectiveness was not a constraint in this pilot program.
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