A novel fluid solid loosely coupled computational approach for precise and fast prediction of indoor air conditioner cooling

Obtaining precise distribution of airflow and temperature during indoor air conditioner ventilation and heat transfer is a pre-condition for adjusting thermal comfort. Numerical simulations, as a core tool for predicting environmental change, face increasingly stringent precision requirements. Traditional methodologies struggle to simultaneously achieve both fast and precise calculations. Consequently, this study introduces an innovative loosely coupled computational approach to address fluid–solid conjugate heat transfer. An integrated three-dimensional heat transfer model has been developed for the air conditioning cooling characteristics laboratory, which quantifies the impact of air buoyancy on thermal stratification phenomena. The model is meticulously compared with experimental results to discern factors impacting simulation precision. The findings underscore the substantial impact of air buoyancy on the room's flow field, temperature distribution, and stratification phenomena. Employing the real time varying temperature monitoring value as the vent boundary significantly minimizes resultant errors, and the error will not exceed 0.50 K. The vent velocity vertical division exerts minimal impact on the mean temperature, but it notably influences temperature stratification outcomes. Notably, the adoption of the loosely coupled computational strategy dramatically slashes computational time of the cooling process to 1/23 of the tightly coupled method, while maintaining a high simulation precision. This study injects new vitality into the transient simulation calculation of indoor thermal environment and provides strong support for the optimized design of air conditioner airflow organization.