Simulating the Fluid Flow via Ceiling Diffuser Using OpenFOAM

Abstract

HVAC (heating ventilation and air conditioning) deals with cooling and heating buildings and providing clean conditioned air for indoor environments such as commercial office spaces, cinemas, and hotels to name a few. Diffusers help to effectively distribute air coming from HVAC ducts into indoor environments. Understanding the flow distribution from the diffuser is of great significance as it helps in locating the optimal location for the diffuser as well helps in designing a better diffuser. With the advent of high-performance computing, numerical simulation is mainly being used to predict airflow via Computational fluid dynamics (CFD). OpenFOAM is an open-source CFD solver written in C++ for solving fluid dynamics problems. In this work, a free architecture design tool called PCON was used to create the geometry of the office/home along with the furniture. OpenFOAM was used to create a mesh and simulate the flow through a square ceiling diffuser and understand the Coanda effect which is created by such a diffuser. Open source code called Paraview was used to analyze the CFD simulations and the results were reported in this paper. In central A/C systems, Freon has been used for decades. Freon, just like R12, has been linked to environmental damage. This work shows how diffusers can help with the efficient distribution of conditioned air in closed spaces. With the efficient distribution of air, Freon would be used less and in turn, more efficiently in a given space. This could prevent environmental damage to some extent.