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Article history: For conservation of cultural heritage, HVAC systems are often necessary for museums to maintain
Received 11 October 2010 suitable indoor environment with precise control of indoor thermal-hygrometric parameters and air
Accepted 21 December 2010 velocity. Large deviations of these parameters from the design values should be prevented, because they
Available online 30 December 2010
may cause degradation of artworks. So, more energy consumption is inevitable.
This paper presents a novel temperature and humidity independent control (THIC) device and its
Keywords:
associated control method in a museum storeroom air-conditioning system. Compared with the
HVAC
conventional HVAC system with the cooling coil (CC), where the apparatus dew point is usually xed, this
Cooling coil
Temperature and humidity independent
system adopting the THIC device can achieve independent temperature and humidity control in an
control (THIC) energy saving way. The experiment study shows that this system can reduce the energy consumption by
Energy saving 21.7%, compared with the conventional HVAC systems using reheat and humidify for an indoor thermal-
hygrometric environment, and the temperature and humidity in the storeroom are also kept stable and
at a higher precision level.
2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction guarantee both the temperature and the humidity ratio are lower
than the supply air parameters, and then results in much more
Conservation of artworks requires precise control of the indoor energy compensation for reheating and re-humidifying. To reduce
microclimatic conditions. Thus, a suitable HVAC system with reli- that compensation, it is necessary for the CC to reduce the over-
able control is often necessary for a museum, to maintain acceptable cooling capacity, so the temperature and humidity independent
indoor thermal-hygrometric parameters and air velocity and also to control (THIC) technique has been studied in many literatures.
minimize the deviations of these parameters from the design values. Generally, substituting desiccant dehumidication for cooling
So it is indispensable for the museum air-conditioning system to dehumidication in the CC, the THIC technique uses solid desic-
comprise heating, humidifying, cooling, dehumidifying and auto- cants [6e8] or liquid desiccants [3,9e11]. But how to realize inde-
matic control units to control the temperature and humidity at the pendent control of temperature and humidity in the same cooling
same time. Considering that the HVAC system in museum always coil in HVAC system is a worthwhile problem, and there are few
has to be operated continually during all the year and 24 h per literatures about this THIC technique.
day, a suitable technique is necessary to obtain considerable In this paper, an HVAC system employing the THIC device in the
energy saving [1], however, guaranteeing a good indoor thermal- CC is proposed and designed. With the PID split-range control, only
hygrometric microclimate. It is shown by some literatures [2e5] that one of the two air thermal-hygrometric parameters after CC, i.e.
the energy consumption will be reduced by about 10e50%, if the temperature or humidity ratio, is to be controlled below the supply
HVAC system adopts a suitable energy-saving technique. air, in order to make the over-cooling capacity as little as possible.
For conventional HVAC system, customarily, the dew point And some experiment tests were done to validate the THIC device.
temperature is xed on the cooling coil (CC) in the air-handling
process, which makes the air after the CC be over-cooling to
2. THIC device
1359-4311/$ e see front matter 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2010.12.031
3654 X.J. Zhang et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 31 (2011) 3653e3657
to from
Nomenclature CC CC THIC
Device
mw,3,T w,1
Cp constant pressure specic heat (kJ/kg K) mw,4,T w,1
h enthalpy (kJ/kg)
3
L latent heat of vaporization (kJ/kg) 4
m mass ow rate (kg/s) mw,T w,1 signal from T-PID
5
Q heat load (kW) 2 mw,2,T w,2 signal from RH-PID
T temperature (K)
1
u air humidity ratio (kg/kg) mw,1,T w
Subscripts from to
CCP CCP
a moist air
l latent heat Fig. 2. Schematic diagram of the THIC device in the CC (1 Three-way valve 1#; 2
i indoor air; inlet Pump; 3 CTV 1#; 4 Three-way valve 2#; 5 CTV 2#).
o outlet
s supply air; sensible heat
w chilled water For satisfying different thermal-hygrometric loads of different
seasons, the system is controlled by two split-range PID condi-
tioners. As shown in Fig. 2, the PID conditioner for temperature
(named as T-PID) controls the CTV 1# and the heater, while the PID
Fig. 2 shows the schematic diagram of the THIC device. For conditioner for relative humidity (named as RH-PID) controls the
temperature control, the CC adjusts the mass ow rate of the CTV 2# and the humidier. The two PID conditioner work together
chilled water according to the sensible cooling load; and for to decide how the CC, the heater and the humidier works, as
humidity control, it adjusts the temperature of the chilled water shown in Figs. 3 and 4.
according to the dehumidication load, or the latent load. Before As shown in Fig. 3, when the T-PID signal for temperature
and after the CC, an electric controllable three-way valve (CTV) increases from 0.0 to 0.5, the signal for CTV 1# which represents
is installed respectively. The CTV 1# adjusts the mass ow rate of the mass ow rate of the chilled water decreases from 1.0 to 0.2,
the chilled water through the CC to control the leaving air while the signal for heater remains at zero; and when the T-PID
temperature so that the sensible load is handled. The CTV signal increases from 0.5 to 1.0, the signal for CTV 1# remains at 0.2
2# adjusts the ow rate of the recirculated water that leaves the which guarantees the minimum ow rate of chilled water going
CC and then returns to mix with the chilled water entering the CC. through CC, while the signal for heater increases from 0.0 to 1.0. So,
In this way, the apparatus dew point of the CC can be regulated generally, with the increase of the value of T-PID signal for
and therefore the leaving air humidity can be controlled sepa- temperature, the outlet air temperature of AHU increases.
rately. In this device, the total mass ow rate of the chilled water Similarly, in Fig. 4, the outlet air relative humidity of AHU
(mw mw,1 mw,2 mw,3 mw,4) is determined by the pump, and increases, when the value of RH-PID signal for relative humidity
the supply water temperature (Tw) is determined by the central increases. To avoid sending back all of the recirculated water that
chilling plant (CCP). Both of them can be considered as constants. leaves the CC, the signal for CTV 2# remains at 0.8 when the RH-PID
The mw,1 and mw,2 is determined by the CTV 2#, while the mw,3 signal increases from 0.5 to 1.0.
and mw,4 is determined by the CTV 1#.
The energy conservation Eq. (1) shows that the mixed temper- 3. Experiment setup
ature Tw,1 is determined by mw,1 and mw,2, which is controlled by the
CTV 2# only. And the ow rate mw,3 of the chilled water into the CC An HVAC system employing the TIHC device was manufactured
is only controlled by CTV 1#. Thus the system controls the and installed to air-condition a museum storeroom, the main
temperature and humidity independently. parameters are listed in Table 1. It comprises the following
subsystems: (1) AHU with a CC, a heater, a humidier and a constant
Tw;1 Tw $mw;1 Tw;2 $mw;2 mw (1) ow rate fan, and the details of the CC are listed in Table 2; (2) Air
AHU AHU
THIC
Device
Central PID RH PID RH
Chilling PID T PID T
Plant
Storeroom Central Storeroom
Chilling
Plant
0.0 0.0
Qs ma $Cp $Ti Ts (3)
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
RH-PID signal for relative humidity Ql ma $L$ui us (4)
Fig. 4. RH-PID signal for relative humidity in the split-range control process. where Qs is the sensible heat load (kW); Ql is the latent heat load
(kW); h is the air enthalpy (kJ/kg); ma is the air ow rate (kg/s); T is
the air dry bulb temperature (K); u is the air humidity ratio (kg/kg);
L is the heat of vaporization for water and assumed constant at the
value for standard conditions (2452 kJ/kg).
Table 1
In case 1, Fig. 5 shows that when the system achieved the
Systematic parameters.
stable state, both the temperature and the relative humidity of
No. Parameter Value the storeroom were kept in an acceptable uctuant range about
1 Rated power of the heater 17.5 kW the set points (22 C and 60%), from 21.9 C to 22.1 C, and from
2 Rated power of the humidier 18 kW 59.3% to 61.1%, respectively. It also shows that the water inlet
3 Rated ow rate of the chilled water pump 25 m3/h
4 Rated power of the chilled water pump 4 kW
temperature matches the room humidity very well; with the
5 Rated power of the fan 7.5 kW water inlet temperature increases, the room relative humidity
increases, vice versa. So it is concluded that the room humidity is
Table 3
Experimental tests under different indoor heat loads.
Table 2
CC details. Case 1 2 3 4 5
Average storerooms T and RH 22 C 22 C 22 C 22 C 22 C
No. Parameter Value
60% 60% 60% 60% 60%
1 Duct (Length Width Height) 1269.5 mm 250 mm 825.5 mm Average supply airs T and RH 18.1 C 19.0 C 13.9 C 22.9 C 22.9 C
2 Number of rows 8 74.2% 69.0% 98.3% 57.6% 57.6%
3 Number of tubes 26 Sensible heat load Qs (kW) 8.81 8.17 16.93 2.49 2.49
4 Outside diameter of tube 12.7 mm Latent heat load Ql (kW) 1.38 2.12 0.76 0.67 0.67
5 Inside diameter of tube 12.0 mm Chilled water from the CCP 9.0 C 9.0 C 9.0 C 9.0 C B
6 Center distance of tube 31.8 mm Signal of T-PID 0.69 0.79 0.38 0.98 0.53
7 Number of ns 500 Signal of RH-PID 0.48 0.44 0.52 0.54 0.52
8 Distance of individual ns 2.5 mm Oneoff state of Heater C C B C C
9 Thickness of n 0.115 mm Oneoff state of Humidier B B C C C
10 Material of tube Copper
11 Material of n Aluminum Notes: C means on; B means off; e means the storeroom is to be heated or
humidied.
3656 X.J. Zhang et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 31 (2011) 3653e3657
30 70 25.0
Room temperature
Room humidity
25 Water temperature at CC inlet 20.0
65
Energy consumption / kW
Relative humidity
Tmeperat ure / C
o
20
15.0
60 THIC system: QCC Qheater
15 Conv. system: QCC Qheater Qdihumidifier
10.0
55
10
5.0
5 50
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110
Time /min 0.0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110
Fig. 5. The temperature and humidity of the air-conditioned storeroom and the Time / min
corresponding water temperature at CC inlet.
Fig. 6. Energy consumptions of the conventional and THIC systems.
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The research work presented in this paper was supported by
(2008) 3387e3390.
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