Comparison of Experimental and Numerical Heat Losses on Air Conditioned Office in Desert Climate

Abstract

In recent years, the building community has integrated sustainable design concepts that can improve indoor air quality while conserving energy in buildings. A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation program using three-dimensional flow finite difference of k –ε has been used and compared with experimental results. The study was carried in a new air-conditioned administrative office center built in 2002 as part of Libya’s regional development, as shown in Figure 1. The building is located in Hoon City, province of Al Jufrah, Southern Libya, at lat. 7’ N and lat. 56’ E. Experimentally eight thermocouples were placed at eight different positions on the inner surface to measure the surface inner temperature. The main aim of the study is to evaluate the temperature difference between outdoor and indoor and the distribution of the air temperature and the velocity inside the room. The temperature differences between the indoor and outdoor was found to be varied between 9 °C to15 °C. Good agreement was achieved between the computed and measured results. The error percentage was varied from 0.3% to 0.8%. For both inner and outer surface, good agreement between experimental and CFD heat transfer coefficient has been achieved.