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Design of Summer Air-conditioning System

Conference Paper · April 2019

DOI: 10.1109/ICMSAO.2019.8880375

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 2019 8th International Conference on Modeling Simulation and Applied Optimization (ICMSAO)

Design of Summer Air-conditioning System

Hassan Khurshid Ph.D. Tawfiq Al Mughanam Ph.D
Karthik Silaipillayarputhur Ph.D.
Dept. of Mechanical Engineering Dept. Chair, Dept. of Mechanical
Dept. of Mechanical Engineering
King Faisal University, KSA Engineering
King Faisal University
Al Ahsaa, KSA King Faisal University
Al Ahsaa, KSA
hkhurshid@kfu.edu.sa Al Ahsaa, KSA
ORCID: 0000-0003-2290-6615
talmughanam@kfu.edu.sa
Abdullah Boudy
Nasser Al Khalifah
Dept. of Mechanical Engineering Ibrahim Allubly
Dept. of Mechanical Engineering
King Faisal University Dept. of Mechanical Engineering
King Faisal University
Al Ahsaa, KSA King Faisal University
Al Ahsaa, KSA
215033414@student.kfu.edu.sa Al Ahsaa, KSA
215036075@student.kfu.edu.sa
215029842@student.kfu.edu.sa

Abstract— The project work concentrates on the
development of a summer air conditioning system for the
Mechanical Engineering wing in the College of Engineering
building at King Faisal University, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. A
complete air conditioning system consists of the basic air
conditioning system coupled with the refrigeration system and
its associated pumping and cooling tower systems. In this paper,
the development of the basic air conditioning system is
considered. Therein, sensible and latent heat loads from various
sources were evaluated in the mechanical engineering wing and
a basic air conditioning system was developed. Based on mixing
conditions, five different cases, were considered in this project.
As a part of air conditioning system, the basic design of the
cooling coil was developed. The cooling coil is a cross flow heat
exchanger and it is assumed to be operating in counter cross
flow configuration. Performance charts were developed for the
counter cross flow heat exchanger in terms of meaningful
dimensionless parameters. These charts will certainly help heat
exchanger designers in developing the most cost efficient heat
exchanger.
Keywords—air conditioning, performance charts, cross flow
heat exchanger
I. INTRODUCTION
The current work concentrates on the development of a
summer air conditioning system for the mechanical
engineering wing in the college of engineering (COE)
building. Air conditioning is a branch of science that deals
with conditioning of air such that the humans are comfortable.
The conditioning involves temperature control, humidity
control, controlling the purity of air and the level of oxygen
content. In general, per ASHRAE standards [1], humans are
comfortable when the room conditions are maintained
between 24°C - 26°C and the relative humidity (RH) is
maintained between 50% - 55%. Per Dupont Process Safety
Management (PSM) standards [2], the optimal range of
oxygen in air required for humans is between 19.5% and
23.5%.
In the air conditioning system, mixing of room air with
fresh air was considered such that oxygen concentration and
the purity of air was maintained at all times. Thereafter, a basic
design of the cooling coil was developed. In this work, it was
desired to maintain the mechanical engineering wing in the
COE building at 24°C and 50% RH.
The cooling coil is a heat exchanger, where the room air
exchanges heat directly with a primary refrigerant or with a
secondary refrigerant. In large scale air conditioning systems,
it may be rather difficult to circulate refrigerant vapor through
pipes over long distances. The difficult aspect is to transport
condensing vapor through pipes and likewise, leakages of
refrigerants can’t be tolerated. Therefore, in large air
conditioning systems, the primary refrigeration cycle is
confined to a small area in the utilities building where a chiller
(refrigeration) unit exchanges heat with a secondary
refrigerant such as water. The chilled water is then pumped
over long distances to the cooling coils so that air and chilled
water can exchange heat. It must be recognized that it is easy
to pump water over long distances as compared to moving
vapor. Also, it must be noted that unlike refrigerants, leakages
of water can be tolerated. Above all, water has high heat
bearing capability and therefore water is commonly employed
as secondary refrigerant in large scale air conditioning
systems.
In heating, ventilation and air conditioning applications, it
is rather convenient to use a cross flow heat exchanger. It is
well established that under steady state conditions, counter
flow heat exchangers yield a much better performance as
compared to the parallel flow heat exchangers. Hence a
counter cross flow heat exchanger is chosen as the cooling coil
for this project.
In this work, the steady-state sensible performance of the
counter cross-flow heat exchanger is investigated, and the
results are presented in the form of performance charts. The
performance charts describe the overall variation of the heat
exchanger effectiveness with respect to NTU and capacity rate
ratio. From performance charts, the basic design of the counter
cross flow heat exchanger can be determined.
Numerous studies have been reported the steady state heat
exchanger performance. Only relevant papers are reported
herein. Matrix approach developed by Silaipillayarputhur and
Idem [3] can be used to determine the overall and intermediate
performance of the heat exchanger. Silaipillayarputhur and
Idem [4] considered the practical validation of the matrix
approach of the heat exchanger performance model and
presented the governing equations required to model a multi-
pass counter cross-flow heat exchanger with continuous way
fins. Silaipillayarputhur [5] considered the steady-state
sensible performance of the parallel cross-flow heat
exchangers, and the performance was reported in the form of
performance tables. Silaipillayarputhur and Al Mughanam [6]
considered the development of performance charts for parallel
cross flow heat exchangers. Therein, the multi pass heat
exchanger's performance was expressed through performance
charts. Matrix approach was employed for the development of
performance charts. Domingos [7] presented a new and
general method for calculating the effectiveness and

978-1-5386-7684-4/19/$31.00 ©2019 IEEE

 2019 8th International Conference on Modeling Simulation and Applied Optimization (ICMSAO)

intermediate temperatures of assemblies of the heat For Glass:

exchangers. In this work, Domingos method shall be used in
L1 = L3 = 0.5 cm, where L1 and L3 are the thicknesses of the
developing charts for the counter cross flow heat exchanger.
glass
II. COOLING LOAD CALCULATIONS L2 = 1.5 cm, where L2 is the thickness of the air gap
In order to design a summer air conditioning system, it is Qcond, glass = 19490.82 W (5.54 tons )
first required to estimate the heat leakages from the
Similarly, the conduction heat transfer through brick wall
surroundings into the building and the amount of heat
can be determined as follows:
generated in the building. Heat leakage from the surroundings
primarily occur through walls and glass windows. Heat is = (2)
,
transmitted through walls and windows due to conduction,
convection and radiation. However, we assume that the =
. .
338 − 297 = 25768.76 (7.32 )
effects of convection heat transfer to be small as compared to .
conduction and radiation heat transfer. Likewise, the radiation heat transfer through brick wall and
With regards to heat generated within the building, heat is glass windows may be determined as follows:
generated from humans, lighting, electrical and electronic For the wall:
gadgets, etc. Heat transmitted from the surroundings through
walls and glass windows is sensible heat. Likewise, all Qrad = ϵ ϬA [Tse4 - Tsurr4] (3)
electrical and electronic gadgets in the building transmit = 0.85x 5.67x 10 x 122.8 [338 – 321 ] = 14406.76 W
-8 4 4
sensible heat. However, it must be recognized that humans (4.1 tons)
generate both sensible and latent heat. Adding/removing heat
without altering the moisture content in air is called sensible For Glass:
heat. On the other hand, adding/removing heat with change Using equation (3)
in moisture content in air is termed latent heat.
= 0.9x 5.67x 10-8 x 280.69 [3384 – 3214] =
A complete survey of the mechanical engineering wing 34866.57W (9.91 tons)
was first conducted and dimensions of walls and glass
windows were determined. Table I describes the dimensions ϵ = Emissivity of the material
of walls and glass windows of the mechanical engineering Ϭ = Boltzman constant; 5.67x 10-8 W/m2.K4
wing of the COE building.
Qrad = Rate of heat transfer by radiation (W)
Table I: Wall and glass dimensions in the mechanical
engineering wing The heat transfer through glass and brick wall can be
considered as the sensible heat leakage from the surroundings
into the building.
Items Width m Hight m Thickness m Area m
2

Walls 42.35 2.9 0.254 122.8

Glass wall
Glass windows
76.38
51.02
2.9
1.16
0.025
221.5
59.18
Table II: Sensible heat leakage through glass and brick
Total Glass m
2
280.69
wall
The walls and windows experience conduction and Sensible heat
radiation heat transfer. It is assumed that the ambient Calculations qrad w qcond w
conditions were around 48°C, 40% RH and the room Glass 34866.57 19490.8198
conditions were maintained at 24°C and at 50% RH. The
exterior surface temperature of the wall and glass (exposed to Brick 14406.76 25768.7663
surroundings) were assumed to be at 65°C. The conduction The heat generated in the building comes from lighting,
heat transfer from walls and glass windows can be expressed people and electrical gadgets. The heat generated in the
as follows [8] mechanical wing is described in the table below:

, =
∆
= (1) Table III: Heat generated in the mechanical wing
( )
Sensible heat generation
Where: Items Quantity Rating (W) Total Heat (W)
Light bulbs A 1092 14 15288
Qcond, glass is the rate of heat transfer through glass by Light bulbs B 188 40 7520
conduction (W) Electronics 50 250 12500
∆ is the surface temperature difference (K) People 80 73.3 5864

Tse is the external glass wall surface temperature (K)

Total sensible heat generated 41172.00
Tsi is the internal glass wall surface temperature (K)
K is the thermal conductivity of the material (W/mK)
Latent heat generation
L is the thickness through which heat is transmitted (m) Items Quantity Rating (W) Total Heat (W)
People 80 58.6 4688
A is the area normal to heat flow (m2)

Total latent heat generated 4688

 2019 8th International Conference on Modeling Simulation and Applied Optimization (ICMSAO)

Therefore the total heat that must be removed from the pumping system for the chilled water, design of the pumping
mechanical wing of the college of engineering building can system for cooling tower water and cooling tower selection
be given as: shall be considered as future work. The basic layout of a stand-
alone air conditioning system may be described in Figure 2.
= (4)
= , , ,
, , , (5)
The total heat that must be removed from the mechanical
engineering wing is described in Table IV. From Table IV, it
can be seen that a 40 ton refrigeration unit is required to
maintain the temperature of the mechanical engineering wing Figure 2: Basic summer air conditioning system
at 24°C and at 50% RH.
In any air conditioning system, fresh air is mixed with
Table IV: Total heat that must be removed from the recirculated air. This is basically done to eliminate toxins and
mechanical engineering wing to have clean supply air to the room. The percentage of mixing
Item
Heating Load - Sensible Heating Load - Latent fresh air with recirculated air depends on the climatic
(W) (W) conditions and also based on the requirements of the user. In
Conduction through brick walls 25769 0 case of cafeteria, fresh air is inducted more so that odor from
Conduction through glass windows 19491 0
the cafeteria is eliminated. Likewise, during spring and fall
Radiation through brick walls 14407 0
seasons, when the outside temperatures are relatively lower, it
Radiation through glass windows 34867 0
will be better to use higher percentage of fresh air. During hot
Lighting 22808 0
summer, the intake of fresh air is kept to bare minimum to
Electronics 12500 0
People 5864 4688
keep the load on the cooling coil as low as possible.
For this project, five different cases are considered and the
Total Room Sensible Heat (W) 135705
Total Room Latent Heat (W) 4688
corresponding load on the cooling coil are computed. These
Total Room Heat (W) 140393 40 tons
cases are described in Table V.
Room Sensible Heat Factor (RSHF) 0.97
Table V: Cases considered for the design of air
conditioning system
III. DESIGN OF AIR CONDITIONING SYSTEM
The basic layout of the summer air conditioning system
Cases Recirc. Air Fresh Air
along with subsystems is described in Figure 1. 1 100% 0%
2 80% 20%
3 70% 30%
4 60% 40%
5 50% 50%
The design of the air conditioning system are per the
ASHRAE standards [1]. Per [1], the room sensible heat factor
(RSHF) must first be known. Room sensible heat factor may
be defined as

= = (6)

Figure 1: Layout of summer air conditioning system with
sub systems
The air conditioning system along with the basic design of
the cooling coil (counter cross flow heat exchanger) is
considered in this work. The design of the refrigeration cycle,
detailed design of the cross flow heat exchanger, design of the
Where:
RSH is room sensible heat
RLH is room latent heat
RTH is room total heat
The total room sensible heat and room latent heat were
computed and are described in Table IV.
Once RSHF is determined, RSHF is plotted in the sensible
heat factor scale of the psychrometric chart. RSHF is then
connected with the ASHRAE human comfort point [1]. In this
project, the comfort point is chosen as 25°C, 50% RH. The
straight line that connects the RSHF and the comfort point is
called alignment line.
The room condition or the desired operating condition of
the mechanical engineering wing is known. The desired
operating condition is 24°C, 50% RH. Draw a line through the
 2019 8th International Conference on Modeling Simulation and Applied Optimization (ICMSAO)

room condition and parallel to the alignment line. This line is

termed RSHF line.
A certain percentage of mixing of fresh air (1) occurs with
the recirculated air (4). Thus, the mixed condition of air (2)
can be readily determined by applying energy balance to
mixing.
= (7)
GSHF (grand sensible heat factor) line connects the
cooling coil’s inlet condition (2), cooling coil coil’s outlet
condition (3) and apparatus dew point temperature (ADP). If
any two points are known the GSHF line can be readily
constructed.
The apparatus dew point temperature refers to the surface
temperature of the cooling coil. Since this is a large scale air Figure 3: Case 1: 100% recirculated air
conditioning system, chilled water will be used as a secondary
refrigerant. Chilled water will be in the tube side and air will
be in the external side in the cross flow heat exchanger.
It is sensible to assume that the chilled water temperature
raise (∆ ) = 7° Likewise, assume ADP,
which is surface temperature of the cooling coil to be at 10°C.
Once, ADP and the cooling coil’s inlet conditions (2) are
known, GSHF line can be constructed.
The intersection of the RSHF line and the GSHF line will
provide the best supply condition (3) for the building.
The bypass factor of the cooling coil, the parameter that
describes the percentage of air that is not cooled to the
apparatus dew point temperature (the surface temperature of Figure 4: Case 5: 50% recirculated air
the cooling coil) can be described as follows
The final result from all the five cases are tabulated below.
= (8) Table VI: Air conditioning Design for the mechanical
engineering wing
The required mass flow rate of air for the room
(mechanical engineering wing) can be determined by
performing a simple energy balance on the mechanical
engineering wing.
= ( - ) (9)
The total room (mechanical engineering wing) cooling
load is estimated and is described in Table IV. The room
(mechanical engineering wing) is assumed to be maintained at
T4 = 24°C, 50% RH. Thus, the corresponding enthalpy h4 can
be determined using psychrometric chart. The supply
condition for the mechanical engineering wing, h3, can be
determined from the intersection of RSHF and GSHF line.
Thus, from the above equation the mass flow rate of air
required for cooling purposes (or to displace the room heat)
can be determined. Likewise, the load on the cooling coil can
be estimated by performing a simple energy balance on the
cooling coil.

= ( - ) (10)
Herein, all parameters such as the mass flow rate of air,
enthalpies h3 and h2 are all known. h3 the supply condition for
the mechanical engineering wing and can be determined from
the intersection of RSHF and GSHF lines, and h2, can be
readily obtained by applying energy balance to mixing. Thus,
the load on the cooling coil can be readily estimated. The
results from all the cases are described in the figures below.
For brevity, only case 1 and case 5 are described herein.
The design of the air conditioning system for the five cases
considered are described in the above table.
Herein, for each case, the required mass flow rate of air
that would be required to displace the heat in the mechanical
engineering wing was determined. The room’s (mechanical
engineering wing) supply condition (3) and the load on the
cooling coil (counter cross flow heat exchanger) were
estimated as well.
 2019 8th International Conference on Modeling Simulation and Applied Optimization (ICMSAO)

IV. BASIC DESIGN OF THE COUNTER CROSS FLOW HEAT An Excel model was developed and performance charts for
EXCHANGER counter cross flow heat exchangers were generated. For
The cross flow heat exchanger is designed based on assuming brevity, only performance charts from 1 pass, 4 passes and 10
that the heat exchanger operates at steady state, the number passes are depicted herein.
of transfer units being uniformly distributed in the heat
exchanger (symmetric heat exchanger), both fluids are
unmixed in a given heat exchanger pass and the external fluid
being treated as the minimum capacity rate fluid. Heat
exchangers operating at steady state are characterized
through certain dimensionless parameters. These parameters
in turn help the heat exchanger designers to optimize the heat
exchanger in terms of operating and capital cost. Once these
dimensionless parameters are established it is rather straight
forward to develop the detailed design of the heat exchanger.
The critical dimensionless parameters pertinent to steady
state heat exchanger’s performance are heat exchanger
effectiveness, number of transfer units (NTU) and capacity
rate ratio Cr. Figure 5: Performance chart- single pass cross flow heat
Design of cross flow heat exchangers are described in detail exchanger
in [4] and [6] and all pertinent dimensionless parameters are
clearly described in [8]. Thus, such information are not
repeated in this manuscript.
The capacity rate ratio per pass will not change throughout
the heat exchanger, as each heat exchanger pass encounters
full mass flow rate of the external and the tube side fluid.
′=
The number of transfer units (NTU) is dimensionless
parameter that describes the heat exchanger’s size. Generally,
bigger the NTU of the heat exchanger, higher would be the
rate of heat transfer. Since the heat exchanger is assumed to
be symmetric, (i.e.), the heat transfer surface area being
uniformly distributed among the heat exchanger passes, it is
customary to assume that
Figure 6: Performance chart- four pass counter cross flow
′= (11) heat exchanger
Where n is the number of heat exchanger passes. Assuming
both fluids to be unmixed, the effectiveness per pass for a
cross flow heat exchanger can be given as
= 1 − exp( exp − −1 (12)
. ) .

The overall effectiveness of the counter cross flow heat

exchanger may then be expressed as described in Domingos
[7]
When Cr’ → 1

= ( )
(13)

Else:
= (14)
Using the equations described performance charts describing
the performance of a counter cross flow heat exchanger were
developed. Herein, the capacity rate ratio is varied between 0
and 1 and the NTU of the heat exchanger is varied between
0.1 and 10. Typically all heat exchangers encountered in real
life have the similar NTU working range. Higher the NTU of
a heat exchanger, bigger is the size of the heat exchanger and
higher is the capital cost.
Figure 7: Performance chart- ten pass counter cross flow heat
exchanger
From the performance charts, it can be clearly seen that
increasing the NTU i.e., the size or the surface area of the heat
exchanger beyond a certain limit adds no value. Also,
increasing the NTU beyond that threshold limit, just adds to
the capital cost of the heat exchanger. Using performance
charts, the basic design for the counter cross flow heat
exchanger for the five cases were determined. For brevity, the
basic design of the heat exchanger for case 1 and case 5 are
described herein.
 2019 8th International Conference on Modeling Simulation and Applied Optimization (ICMSAO)
Table VII: Basic Design of the Counter Cross Flow Heat
Exchanger for case 1
Table VIII: Basic Design of the Counter Cross Flow Heat
Exchanger for case 5
V. CONCLUSIONS
This work concentrates on the development of a summer air
conditioning system for the mechanical engineering wing in
the COE building. As described in Figure 1, the cooling
system is sub divided into three subsystems, such as the air
conditioning system, the main refrigeration system and a
cooling tower system. The air conditioning system consisting
of the cooling coil was in this work. ASHRAE standards were
employed in the air conditioning design. The cooling coil
employed in the air conditioning system is a cross flow heat
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exchanger operating in counter flow configuration. Therein,
performance charts were developed to come up with the basic
design of the heat exchanger. Using performance charts, the
basic design of the cross flow heat exchanger was
determined. Since performance charts is described through
meaningful significant dimensionless parameters, these
charts can be used to optimize the design of the heat
exchanger.
REFERENCES
[1] ASHRAE Standard 55-2013 -- Thermal
Environmental Conditions for Human Occupancy;
Engineering Standards; 2013 revision
[2] DuPont Technology Consulting; E.I. du Pont
Nemours Company; Engg Standards; 2002 revision.
[3] Silaipillayarputhur, K. and Idem, S., 2013, “A
general Matrix Approach to model steady state
performance of cross-flow heat exchangers”, Heat
Transfer Engineering, Vol. 34, No. 4, pp. 338-348.
[4] Silaipillayarputhur, K. and Idem. S., 2013 “Practical
Validation of a Matrix Approach Steady State Heat
Exchanger Performance Model”, Journal of Applied
Global Research, ISSN: 1940-1841, Vol. 6, No. 17,
pp. 1-22.
[5] Silaipillayarputhur, K., Al-Saif, A., Al-Otaibi, M.,
2017. “Performance Tables for Parallel Cross Flow
Heat Exchangers”, International Journal of
Engineering Research in Africa, ISSN: 1663-4144,
accepted for publication, Vol. 27.
[6] Silaipillayarputhur, K., and Al-Mughanam, T.,
2018. “Performance charts for multi-pass parallel
cross-flow heat exchangers”, International Journal
of Mechanical Engineering and Robotics Research
Volume 7, Issue 5, 1 September 2018, Pages 478-
482.
[7] Domingos, J. D. 1969. Analysis of Complex
Assemblies of Heat Exchangers, Int. J. Heat Mass
Transfer, Vol. 12, pp. 537-548.
[8] Theodore L. Bergman, Adrienne S. Lavine, Frank P.
Incropera and David P. Dewitt, Fundamentals of
Heat and Mass Transfer, Seventh Edition.