Modeling and simulation of duct routing

system using equal friction method

Guide: K Venkata Ganesh

 Abstract
• The main objective of the present project is to design a duct routing system for AHU’s in
pharmaceutical industry to save the energy utilization and with improved efficiency of the
unit.
• An air handling unit is a factory fabricated assembly consisting of fan, heating and/or
cooling coils, filters, dampers and other necessary equipment to perform one or more of the
following functions of circulating, cleaning, heating, cooling, humidifying, dehumidifying,
and mixing of air.
• The generated air is catered to the rooms via ducting and we focus in this area. Sometimes
AHUs discharge (supply) and admit (return) air directly to and from the space served,
without ductwork.
• Some losses are identified in the in the design of duct for the system to get the concept we
go to design considerations and its types,
• Velocity reduction method: (Residential or small commercial installations)
• Equal friction method: (Medium to large sized commercial installations)
• Static regain: Very large installations (concert halls, airports and industrial)
• Upon several calculation on flow rates of the ducting system catering to rooms we use some
parameters like duct shape and bends in the routing of the duct the design parameters and
conclusion will be given with computational fluid dynamics using the software simscale for
HVAC system.
 Introduction
• The Air should be conveyed as directly as possible to save space,
power and material. Sudden changes in directions should be
avoided. When not possible to avoid sudden changes, turning
vanes should be used to reduce pressure loss.
• Diverging sections should be gradual. Angle of divergence is less
than 20o
• Aspect ratio should be as close to 1.0 as possible. Normally, it
should not exceed 4
• Air velocities should be within permissible limits to reduce noise
and vibration
• Duct material should be as smooth as possible to reduce frictional
losses
Air handling unit
 Classification of ducts
• Ducts are classified based on the load on duct due to air pressure and
turbulence.
• The classification varies from application to application, such as for residences,
commercial systems, industrial systems etc. one such classification is given
below:
• Low pressure systems: Velocity < 10 m/s, static pressure < 5 cm H2O (g)
• Medium pressure systems: Velocity = 10 m/s, static pressure <15 cm H2O (g)
• High pressure systems: Velocity > 10 m/s, static pressure 15ps < 25 cm H2O (g)
• High velocities in the ducts results in:
 Smaller ducts and hence, lower initial cost and lower space requirement
 Higher pressure drop and hence larger fan power consumption
 Increased noise and hence a need for noise attenuation
Velocities in duct routing
Air flow Vs Friction losses
 EQUAL FRICTION METHOD
• The equal friction method for sizing air ducts is often preferred
because it is quite easy to use. The method can be summarized to
• Compute the necessary air volume flow (m3/s, cfm) in every room
and branch of the system
• Use to compute the total air volume (m3/s, cfm) in the main system
• Determine the maximum acceptable airflow velocity in the main duct
• Determine the major pressure drop in the main duct
• Use the major pressure drop for the main duct as a constant to
determine the duct sizes throughout the distribution system
• Determine the total resistance in the duct system by multiplying the
static resistance with the equivalent length of the longest run
• Compute balancing dampers
Reactangular duct Vs Round duct
 Reactangular duct Vs Round duct
• The rectangular duct therefore requires more
metal for its construction.
• This adds more weight and costs to the design.
The larger perimeter also means more air will
come into contact wit the material and this adds
friction to the system.
• Friction in a system means the fan needs to work
harder and this results in higher operating costs.
Duct system
 Duct Materials (metallic)
• Galvanized Steel: It is a standard, most common material used in fabricating ductwork for
most comfort air conditioning systems. The specifications for galvanized steel sheet are
ASTM A653, coating G90.
• Aluminium: It is widely used in clean room applications. These are also preferred systems
for moisture laden air, special exhaust systems and ornamental duct systems. The
specifications for Aluminium sheet are ASTM B209, alloy 1100, 3003 or 5052.
• Stainless Steel: It is used in duct systems for kitchen exhaust, moisture laden air, and
fume exhaust. The specifications for stainless steel sheet are ASTM A167, Class 302 or
304, Condition A (annealed) Finish No. 4 for exposed ducts and Finish No. 2B for
concealed duct.
• Carbon Steel (Black Iron): It is widely used in applications involving flues, stacks, hoods,
other high temperature and special coating requirements for industrial use.
• Copper: It is mainly used for certain chemical exhaust and ornamental ductwork.
• Pressure in the air conditioning ducts is small, so materials with a great deal of strength
are not needed. The thickness of the material depends on the dimensions of the duct, the
length of the individual sections, and the cross-sectional area of the duct.
 Duct material (non-metallic)
• Fibreglass Reinforced Plastic (FRP): It is used mainly for chemical exhaust, scrubbers, and underground
duct systems. Advantages are resistance to corrosion, self-insulation, excellent sound attenuation and high
quality sealing. Limiting characteristics include cost, weight, range of chemical and physical properties,
and code acceptance.

• Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC): It is used for exhaust systems for chemical fumes and underground duct
systems. Advantages include resistance to corrosion, light weight, and ease of modification. Limiting
characteristics include cost, fabrication, code acceptance, thermal shock, and weight.

• Fabric: Fabric ducting, also known as textile ducts, is usually made of special permeable polyester material
and is normally used where even air distribution is essential. Due to the nature or the air distribution,
textile ducts are not usually concealed within false ceilings. Condensation is not a concern with fabric
ducts and therefore these can be used where air is to be supplied below the dew point without insulation.

• Flex Duct: Flex ducts consist of a duct inner liner supported on the inside by a helix wire coil and covered
by blanket insulation with a flexible vapor barrier jacket on the outside. Flex ducts are often used for
runouts, as well as with metal collars used to connect the flexible ducts to supply plenums, trunks and
branches constructed from
 Simscale
• Engineering simulation, also known as
computer-aided engineering (CAE), refers to
the use of sophisticated graphical software to
analyze designs and solve engineering
problems.
• CAE includes Finite Element Analysis (FEA),
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), Thermal
Analysis, Multibody Dynamics, and
Optimization.
 Simscale
• Used primarily in Aerospace and Automotive since the 1950s,
nowadays computer-aided engineering is standard in almost all
industries, from Heavy Equipment, HVAC and Manufacturing to
Consumer Goods and Electronics for simulating, validating and
optimizing product designs.
• Fluid flow, mass and thermal transport, fluid-solid interaction, static or
dynamic analysis, stress analysis on components and assemblies,
conjugate heat transfer, conduction, convection, radiation and more
can be tested for a wide range of designs, using CAE software.
• The main purpose of CAE is to test, predict and improve the robustness,
performance, energy efficiency and durability of components and
assemblies, in the end creating better products and reducing the
number of required physical prototypes and the time to market.
 Turbulent flow
In fluid dynamics, a turbulent regime refers to irregular flows in
which eddies, swirls, and flow instabilities occur. It is governed by
high momentum convection and low momentum diffusion. It is in
contrast to the laminar regime, which occurs when a fluid flows in
parallel layers with no disruption between the layers. The
turbulence regime is extremely frequent in natural phenomena
and human applications; some examples are the rise of a
cigarette’s smoke, waterfalls, blood flow in arteries, and most of
the terrestrial atmospheric recirculation. In terms of human
applications, the turbulent regime occurs in the aerodynamics of
vehicles, but also in many industrial applications such as heat
exchangers, quenching processes or continuous casting of steel.
 Reynolds number
• he real onset of scientific studies on turbulence can be found in the work of Osborne
Reynolds in the second half of the 19th century. Reynolds showed the transition between a
laminar and a turbulent regime through a set of experimental investigations. He also
suggested that this transition was directly linked to the ratio between inertial and viscous
forces. This ratio was computed by George Gabriel Stokes in 1851 and has been named
“Reynolds number” in honor of Osborne Reynolds who popularized it. This dimensionless
number is defined as:
• Re=ρudμ=udν(1)
• where:
• ρ is the density of the fluid
• u is the macroscopic velocity of the flow
• d is the characteristic length (or hydraulic diameter)
• μ is the dynamic viscosity of the fluid
• ν is the kinematic viscosity of the fluid.
• Turbulent flows occur when Re exceeds a certain threshold (dependent on the application’s
topology and flow physics) called “Critical Reynolds number”.
 Turbulence structure
• This principle was motivated by energetical considerations; big eddies are
highly inertial and tend to be unstable. Their motion feeds smaller eddies
thanks to a local transfer of kinetic energy. These smaller eddies undergo
the same process, giving rise to even smaller eddies that inherit the
energy of their parent eddy, and so on. This transfer of energy is usually
called “energy cascade” and it is mainly inertial, thus almost no energy
dissipation occurs until reaching a sufficiently small length scale such that
the viscosity of the fluid can effectively dissipate the kinetic energy. This
latter scale of the turbulence exhibits a local laminar regime and is
characterized by a low value of Re. This process has been depicted in
Figure 1. Richardson’s studies highlight an important feature of turbulent
flows: they are energy demanding. A turbulent flow will dissipate energy
and decay to a laminar flow unless it is fed by an external source of
energy.
 Governing equations
• The complexity of turbulence and its aleatory behavior led scientists to use statistical models to describe
turbulence flows. In 1941, Kolmogorov enhanced Richardson’s theory2. Kolmogorov postulated that for
high enough Reynolds number, the small scale eddies are isotropic, while large eddies may be anisotropic
(or anyway, dependent on the specific domain’s topology). This assumption is very important because it
means that the statistical analysis of small eddies is independent of any specific geometry and thus it is
universal for all turbulent flows. Under this hypothesis, Kolmogorov statistically described the main
features of the smallest turbulence scale (known as “Kolmogorov microscales”) as follows:
Kolmogorov length scale η=(ν3ϵ)0.25

Kolmogorov velocity τ=(νϵ)0.25

Kolmogorov velocity scale u=(νϵ)0.25

• η is the kinematic viscosity

• ϵ is the turbulence kinetic energy
• ν ,τ and u are the characteristic length, period (or “turnover time”) and velocity of the smallest eddies
respectively
 Reynolds average navier stokes equation
• Navier-Stokes (NS) equations can model any kind of flow,
turbulent flows included. The problem is that for very high
values of Re, the resolution of NS equation is very
challenging and not stable. Thus a small perturbation in the
parameter like the initial or boundary conditions may lead
to a completely different solution. This problem is partially
overcome by the use of the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-
Stokes Equations (RANS)3. Let’s consider the Navier-
Stokes equation for an incompressible Newtonian fluid
ρ∂tui+ρujui,j=−ρp,i+μui,jj
ui,i=0
Result and discussion
 Conclusion
• This study was conducted to determine if there was an
effective way for HVAC manufacturers to characterize
the airflow through an AHU system without having to
build a physical model for every design iteration,
reducing the overall cost and material use of the design
process
• This is useful for determining ideal operating conditions;
however much of that research does not take into
account real world scenarios that combine the heating
coil, blower unit, and a cooling coil within an AHU
 Conclusion
• The research during this project used computational fluid
dynamics to simulate the model of airflow through an AHU in
order to understand the flow uniformity and its impact on heat
transfer.
• A region was used as a flow direction to the real geometry of
the air flow, where the physical parameters were calibrated
against experiments conducted in our industry. These tuned
parameters provided the inertial and viscous resistance
coefficients used in this continuum. CFD analysis using an
unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier Stokes solver and equal
friction method in designing the ducting was then compared
with experimental data
Conclusion