Analysis of radiant cooling system integrated with cooling tower for composite climatic conditions

Abstract

Increased demand for cooling leads to consumption of a significant amount of energy by heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems in buildings. Building envelope acts as a thermal barrier and plays a significant role in improving building energy efficiency. Radiant cooling systems often utilize building structure in the form of thermal storage and provide thermal comfort. The radiant cooling system has the potential of saving peak power in the buildings. In present study experimental and a simulation study is performed for chiller and cooling tower integrated chilled ceiling radiant cooling system for chilled water source and a parallel dedicated outdoor air system (DOAS) is used for providing latent load and fresh air requirements of the zone. Cooling tower based radiant cooling system is compared with a chiller-based radiant cooling system for achieving annual energy saving. Experiments are conducted for the chiller and cooling tower operated radiant cooling system. Based on experimental data, whole building simulation models of both cooling tower and chiller-based systems were calibrated. For both the simulation model of chiller and cooling tower operated radiant cooling system simulation were carried out for round the year. The annual simulation results show that the cooling tower operated radiant cooling system saves 14% energy as compared to the chilled water operated radiating cooling system.