Taguchi-Method-Based CFD Study and Optimisation of Personalised Ventilation Systems

Abstract

This paper presents a Taguchi-method-based approach that can quickly and accurately predict the operating performance of personalised ventilation (PV) systems using limited computational fluid dynamics simulation results. This method was used to optimise the operation characteristics (supply air temperature, velocity and flow rate) of a new PV air terminal device (ATD) design with the goal of achieving an overall best performance of thermal comfort, indoor air quality (IAQ) and energy efficiency. With the new ATD system, supply air temperature was found to have a significant influence on thermal comfort, IAQ and energy; volume flow rate was found to have a significant effect on IAQ and minor effects on thermal comfort and energy; and supply air velocity was found to have insignificant effects on all performance characteristics. Two new methods were developed to rapidly identify optimal system parameters for the best overall performance. Multiple solutions were obtained for the optimised system where improvements in thermal comfort, IAQ and energy performance were achieved in comparison to a system with mixing ventilation only.