Exploring the Environment/Energy Pareto Optimal Front of an Office Room Using Computational Fluid Dynamics-Based Interactive Optimization Method

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the development of a high-resolution and control-friendly optimization framework in enclosed environments that helps improve thermal comfort, indoor air quality (IAQ), and energy costs of heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system simultaneously. A computational fluid dynamics (CFD)-based optimization method which couples algorithms implemented in Matlab with CFD simulation is proposed. The key part of this method is a data interactive mechanism which efficiently passes parameters between CFD simulations and optimization functions. A two-person office room is modeled for the numerical optimization. The multi-objective evolutionary algorithm—non-dominated-and-crowding Sorting Genetic Algorithm II (NSGA-II)—is realized to explore the environment/energy Pareto front of the enclosed space. Performance analysis will demonstrate the effectiveness of the presented optimization method.