Simulation and Measurement of Energetic Performance in Decentralized Regenerative Ventilation Systems

Nicolas Carbonare, Hannes Fugmann, Nasir Asadov, Thibault Pflug, Lena Schnabel and Constanze Bongs
Additional contact information
Nicolas Carbonare: Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems, Heidenhofstr. 2, 79110 Freiburg, Germany
Hannes Fugmann: Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems, Heidenhofstr. 2, 79110 Freiburg, Germany
Nasir Asadov: Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems, Heidenhofstr. 2, 79110 Freiburg, Germany
Thibault Pflug: Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems, Heidenhofstr. 2, 79110 Freiburg, Germany
Lena Schnabel: Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems, Heidenhofstr. 2, 79110 Freiburg, Germany
Constanze Bongs: Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems, Heidenhofstr. 2, 79110 Freiburg, Germany

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 22, 1-25

Abstract: Decentralized regenerative mechanical ventilation systems have acquired relevance in recent years for the retrofit of residential buildings. While manufacturers report heat recovery efficiencies over 90%, research has shown that the efficiencies often vary between 60% and 80%. In order to better understand this mismatch, a test facility is designed and constructed for the experimental characterization and validation of regenerative heat exchanger simulation models. A ceramic honeycomb heat exchanger, typical for decentralized regenerative ventilation devices, is measured in this test facility. The experimental data are used to validate two modeling approaches: a one-dimensional model in Modelica and a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model built in COMSOL Multiphysics ® . The results show an overall acceptable thermal performance of both models, the 1D model having a much lower simulation time and, thus, being suitable for integration in building performance simulations. A test case is designed, where the importance of an appropriate thermal and hydraulic modeling of decentralized ventilation systems is investigated. Therefore, the device is integrated into a multizone building simulation case. The results show that including component-based heat recovery and fan modeling leads to 30% higher heat losses due to ventilation and 10% more fan energy consumption than when assuming constant air exchange rates with ideal heat recovery. These findings contribute to a better understanding of the behavior of a growing technology such as decentralized ventilation and confirm the need for further research on these systems.

Keywords: decentralized ventilation; heat recovery; honeycomb heat exchanger; computational fluid dynamics; Modelica (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/22/6010/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/22/6010/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:13:y:2020:i:22:p:6010-:d:446582

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().