urgent: how to include fans in zones and adjacent zones -to force air through leakages and cracks on doors.

In energy plus, Can one fan operate such that it blows air in either direction? Or can a fan only blow air in one direction? If it is possible to have a bidirectional fan in a zone, what object or field is needed to trigger this.

For better clarification on this: I am trying to model a 3 zone airflow network with two fans in each zone. One fan will be responsible for pushing ambient air into each zone and the other fan would serve as an exhaust fan. Secondly, I want to also implement two fans in between adjacent zones -one fan should blow air from zone A to zone B and the other fan should blow air from zone B to zone A. Is this possible to do in energy plus? If yes, how do I go about it?

Please your answers will go a long way to help me.

Kaycee_fresh

asked 2022-02-14 14:08:00 -0500

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Aaron Boranian

updated 2022-02-23 08:18:36 -0500

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EnergyPlus doesn't have any concept of direction in a zone other than "knowing" the air is moving from one node to another. In the case of a zone, and example would be that it leaves the zone splitter, passes through the zone (in a well-mixed manner), then goes to an inlet of the zone mixer. Please explain more about what you would like to model.

Jim Dirkes (2022-02-17 03:34:33 -0500) edit

@Jim Dirkes I am trying to model a 3 zone airflow network with two fans in each zone. One fan will be responsible for pushing ambient air into each zone and the other fan would serve as an exhaust fan. Secondly, I want to also implement two fans in between adjacent zones -one fan should blow air from zone A to zone B and the other fan should blow air from zone B to zone A. Is this possible to do in energy plus? If yes, how do I go about it?

Kaycee_fresh (2022-02-22 23:01:31 -0500) edit

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It sounds like your goal is:

Account for exhaust fan (EF) energy
Let EnergyPlus know that air is moving from one zone to another

I've been using E+ for ~15 years, but have not explored the airflow network, so I can't help specifically with that. If I were doing this, I would:

Make a simple air loop with only outdoor air in the amount of ambient air you desire (or assign proper outdoor air to an existing air loop)
Add a Zone EF to exhaust that air
add an electric load in the transfer zone downstream of the exhaust fan equivalent to the fan's power (both zones)
add a ZoneMixing or ZoneCrossMixing object with the same airflow as the transfer airflow.

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Jim Dirkes

answered 2022-02-23 05:09:41 -0500

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Thank you very much for the feedback. However, the multizone network restricts me to using only the airflow network. I have tried a couple of stuffs, but I can't still figure it out. I guess it's a bit complicated but I am sure there should be a way out.

Kaycee_fresh (2022-02-23 09:03:03 -0500) edit

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What about ZoneMixing object - https://bigladdersoftware.com/epx/doc...

ZoneMixing is intended to allow simplified treatment of air exchange between zones. We used it in one project to simulate draught. It worked quite well.

kem

answered 2022-02-23 08:45:49 -0500