Study of thermal and humidity environment and prediction model in impinging jet ventilation rooms based on thermal and moisture coupling

Abstract

Variations of indoor humidity have significant influence on thermal comfort, calculation accuracy of air-conditioning load and selection of design parameters. As one of the most promising advanced ventilation strategies, impinging jet ventilation (IJV) has received much attention. However, few study concerned its coupled indoor thermal and humidity environment and there is also no complete mathematical model for the IJV to synchronously predict its indoor temperature and humidity distributions. Therefore, this study first simulated the thermal and humidity environment in IJV rooms with considering the coupled thermal and moisture transfer effect. The results demonstrate a significant correlation between temperature and humidity distributions in IJV, with a correlation coefficient of approximately 0.4. Then, a simplified theoretical model for predicting temperature and humidity distributions in the IJV was established based on the theory of nodal model, and the key parameters within the model that are influenced by indoor airflow pattern were also identified. Next, the model results were compared with the simulation ones and showed that the proposed model is with a mean absolute error of 0.4 °C for the prediction of temperature distribution and of 0.21 g/kg for the prediction of humidity distribution. These discrepancies are sufficiently minor to validate the accuracy of the proposed model. Last, the potential application value of the proposed model was discussed. Overall, the current study contributes to extend the application of the existing coupled thermal and humidity models to IJV scenarios, and provides a robust theoretical foundation for the more rational design and practical application of the IJV.