Numerical study of airflow and heat transfer in an air-cooled room with different inlet positions

This study is focused to airflow and heat transfer analyses in an air-cooled room. Three-dimensional numerical results of a rectangular room considering three different inlet configurations are presented. The study was carried out considering turbulent flow and the radiative exchange between the walls. A vertical wall receives a constant heat flux, and the opposite wall is maintained at a uniform and constant temperature; the remaining walls are adiabatic. The air inlet velocity was 0.5 m/s and the emissivity of the walls was considered as 0.8. The mathematical model was solved numerically with Computational Fluid Dynamics software. The temperature fields, flow patterns, heat transfer coefficients, and temperature distribution effectiveness are presented and discussed. It was found that the heat transfer due to the radiative effect is around 50% for the three cases studied; besides, the heat transfer coefficients and temperature distribution effectiveness are highly dependent on the inlet position.