NATALIE MORRIS
MECHANICAL ENGINEERING WITH BUILDING SERVICES MEng
Building services use a significant percentage of the world's energy. This is of interest to me, as much of the world desires improved living and working environments. Research and education are fundamental to reducing the impacts that this will have on our climate and global warming.
Gloucestershire Constabulary Headquaters - A photo of the external shading on the north face of the building to limit solar gains, another example of its environmentally friendly installations.
The new Gloucestershire Constabulary Headquaters uses geothermal technology to provide its heating and cooling. Using this headquaters as a model building, my project assessed the energy consumptions for alternative heating and cooling methods, a geothermal system using heat pumps and a conventional system using boilers and chillers. I then used the results to assess if the geothermal solution justified the additional cost.
I calculated the building thermal loading and produced a spreadsheet by applying basic building heat transfer theory, taking into account solar gains, fresh air ventilation loadings, internal heat gains due to people, IT and lighting and conductive heat losses and gains. The seasonal loadings obtained were then applied to both solutions. The sizing of the geothermal bore-field, the number of boreholes, their depth and the required heat-pump power was calculated using the Internet 'RETScreen' programme.
This comparison proved that the heat pump solution was more energy effecient for the same internal environmental conditions. In theory, this proves this to be an environmentally and econmically viable solution. However, this was not fully established in view of the inaccessibility of initial commercial fuel costs and the inability to preduct fuel price increases due to the depletion of fossil fuel reserves.
Other reports I have written consist of an analysis of a section of an air duct with heater batteries using the CFD package Fluent. This enabled a visualisation of the behaviour of the air at any point to be seen and analysed, giving me greater insight into the behaviour of air when flowing through a ventilation system and the effect of various components may have on it. I have also produced a detailed report on the commisioning methods for air systems, as well as witnessing many of the procedures during my industrial work placement. This gave me an appreciation of how the ventilation systems are adjusted to produce the designed airflow into a specific room.
