Volume 26: Closing Carbon Cycles – A Transformation Process Involving Technology, Economy, and Society: Part I

A Fast and Elaborate Simulation Method for Complex Chilled Water Distribution System Guang Yang, Hai Wang

Abstract

A fast and elaborate simulation method is always essential to enhance the energy performance of a chilled water system. This study proposed a new zonal approach to divide a chilled water distribution system into different hydraulic zones. And an improved numerical solution is employed to shorten the simulation time through multi-thread parallel computation. A real chilled water system evaluated the performance of the proposed simulation method. Results indicate that the relative errors between the hourly actual data and simulation results on water pressure, flow rate, and temperature on a typical day are 2.99%, 1.89%, and 4.16%, respectively. Also, compared to the conventional solution, the average simulation time of the proposed solution is reduced to only 4.5 %.

Keywords Chilled water distribution system, Hydraulic behavior, Zonal method, Parallel computation, High-rise building