Abstract—Moist air is an important factor influencing indoor air quality, human comfort, energy consumption of buildings and the durability of building materials. Consequently, the purpose of this work is to develop a numerical model of condensation phenomena for humid air in rooms. The model description is focusing on surface convection heat transfer and water vapor transport. The model is integrated in the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) technique. As a result, the whole numerical CFD model can be used to predict airborne moisture in rooms, taken also into consideration condensation of humid air on cold surfaces. The performance of the numerical model is analyzed using experimental data for water vapor condensation on a glazed wall in a ventilated test room. The experimental-numerical comparisons show the capability of the model to predict in a realistic manner the condensate appearance and its distribution on cold surfaces. Accordingly, the results of this study can be applied in several fields: buildings (indoor air quality, thermal comfort and energy consumption), industry (microclimate control and technological conditions), and vehicles (freezing prediction on the windshield).
Index Terms—CFD simulations, full scale test cell, humidity modeling, surface condensation model.
C. Teodosiu and R. Teodosiu are with the Thermo-Hydraulic and Protection of the Atmosphere Systems Department, Technical University of Civil Engineering, Bucharest 020396, Romania (e-mail: cteodosiu@yahoo.com, ralucahohota@yahoo.com).
V. Ilie is with the Doctoral Studies Department, Technical University of Civil Engineering, Bucharest 020396, Romania (e-mail: viorel_ilie_88@yahoo.com).
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Cite: Cătălin Teodosiu, Viorel Ilie, and Raluca Teodosiu, "Condensation Model for Application of Computational Fluid Dynamics in Buildings," International Journal of Materials, Mechanics and Manufacturing vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 129-133, 2015.