Calibration Methodology for CFD Models of Rooms and Buildings with Mechanical Ventilation from Experimental Results

This chapter describes a methodology for the development and calibration of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models of three-dimensional enclosures for buildings with combined forced and natural convection from experimental result. The models were validated with physical test measurements of room air temperature. The developed CFD models included a model of an internal wall-mounted air conditioning (HVAC) split unit. The methodology proposed here aims at selecting the correct grid size and the appropriate boundary conditions from experimental data. The experimental campaign took place in an empty office room within an educational building. A set of experiments was performed with varying boundary conditions of two main variables, the fan speed of the HVAC unit and the surface wall temperature of the opposite wall to the HVAC unit. The developed CFD models used the standard k-ε turbulence model and the SIMPLE algorithm. The variable of interest was the room air temperature and its distribution within the internal environment. The application of the methodology has shown satisfactory results, finding a maximum error of 9% between the CFD model and the experimental result. This methodology can be used by other researchers to calibrate CFD models in existing rooms and then carry out detailed studies of temperature distribution, comfort and energy demand analysis.