Prediction of Improved Occupant’s Thermal Comfort with Ceiling Fan through Coupled Energy Simulation and Computational Fluid Dynamics

Ceiling fans are considered as effective energy saving option for occupant’s thermal comfort improvement. In this study, a generic method is developed to integrate the effect of air flow induced by a ceiling fan in a whole building simulation model to quantify its effect on occupant’s thermal comfort and associated reduced cooling energy demand. A co-simulation between EnergyPlus and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) has been performed. A generalized interface is developed using Matlab and Building Control Virtual Test Bed (BCVTB) to couple EnergyPlus and Fluent for co-simulation. A cubical room comprising a window having dimensions of 3m×3m×3m and 2m×2m respectively and equipped with a ceiling fan is taken to illustrate the applicability of the method. Simulation is performed for the typical summer day of Mumbai city of India. This paper concludes that for considered case using ceiling fan improves thermal comfort index by 38% and reduces cooling load by 27%.