18ME742 Emerging Sustainable Building Cooling Technologies syllabus for ME

Social and Environmental Issues related to conventional Refrigeration and Air conditioning:

Climate Change and energy poverty implications of energy consumption and refrigerants use by conventional VaporCompression based RAC technologies, Global and Indian environmental, energy efficiency and green building policies, laws and rules warranting a trajectory shift in the RAC economy, Introduction to Thermal comfort as an ‘ends’ and cooling systems as a ‘means’, Socio-economic and environmental benefits of a Negawatt approach to energy conservation vs. a Megawatt approach towards power generation.

Thermal Comfort, Climate Analysis and Psychrometry:

The ‘human thermal comfort’ lens and its implications for cooling system design, Progressive models for addressing human thermal comfort needs, Thermodynamics of human body, Factors affecting human comfort, Introduction to the ASHRAE Std. 55, Adaptive Comfort Model and the Indian Model for Adaptive Comfort (IMAC) and its implications for mitigating climate change and energy consumption from cooling technologies, Tools for predicting thermal comfort in buildings, Principles and tools for climate analysis, Composition of Psychrometric Charts, Psychrometric processes of conventional and sustainable cooling technologies and representation on psychrometric chart, Application of psychrometry to design conventional and sustainable cooling technologies.

Indoor Air Quality and Building Cooling Load Modelling:

Addressing trade-offs between indoor air quality requirements, daylighting needs, and solar heat gain reduction in artificially cooled buildings, Factors affecting building cooling loads, Building cooling load

Refrigeration Systems and Refrigerants:

Thermodynamics of Vapor Compression Refrigeration (VCR) and Vapor Absorption Machine (VAM) Cycles, Equipment used in commercial and residential VCR and VAM systems, Physical, Chemical, Thermodynamic and Environmental properties of Refrigerants and Refrigerant mixtures (zeotropic and azeotropic mixtures) used in conventional VCR system, Absorbent – Refrigerant combinations (Water-Ammonia and LithiumBromide) used in VAM systems, Physical, Chemical, Thermodynamic and Environmental properties of emerging Natural Refrigerants for VCR systems.

Air conditioning:

Air conditioning demand scenarios for India and associated health, social justice, energy access, and environmental Implications for its peoples and communities, Potential sustainable air conditioning scenarios for India, Heat transfer and psychrometric principles of air conditioning cycles, Engineering principles of air conditioning components, Air conditioning coefficient-of-performance calculation, Energy efficient air conditioning system, Energy and greenhouse gas emissions-based performance comparison of natural refrigerant and f-gas based air conditioners.

Sustainable Cooling Technologies:

Radical social justice fostering, energy conservation, and climate change mitigation potential of natural cooling, Design principles of natural and sustainable cooling systems, Science and engineering design principles of a) Direct, Indirect, and Hybrid (Direct-Indirect and DX) Evaporative Cooling technology, b) Structure Cooling, c) Radiant Cooling Systems, and d) Solar VAM technology, Basic equipment sizing calculations, System performance assessment methods, Comparative energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions and life-cycle cost case studies for residential and commercial applications of conventional and sustainable cooling technologies.

Course Outcomes:

At the end of the course, the student will be able to:

CO1: Empathize with sustainable cooling as a means of enhancing social justice in India and mitigating climate change through their intellectual capabilities and ethical orientation

CO2: Compute and Interpret cooling and heating loads in a building and how they could be efficiently managed by using building energy modelling software

CO3: Estimate the performance of airconditioning systems using the principles of thermodynamics, heat transfer, and psychometry

CO4: Calculate and interpret the energy, cost, and greenhouse gas emissions performance of conventional and sustainable cooling technologies.

CO5: Conduct building and sustainable cooling modelling projects on a sophisticated building energy modelling software.

Question paper pattern:

• The question paper will have ten full questions carrying equal marks.
• Each full question will be for 20 marks.
• There will be two full questions (with a maximum of four sub- questions) from each module.
• Each full question will have sub- question covering all the topics under a module.
• The students will have to answer five full questions, selecting one full question from each module.

Textbook/s

1 Refrigeration and Airconditioning C P Arora Tata McGraw Hill 3 rd Edition

2 Heating, Ventilating and Airconditioning Faye C McQuiston, Jerald D. Parker, Jeffrey D. Spitler Wiley Indian Private Ltd.

Reference Books

1 Radiant Heating and Cooling Handbook Richard D. Watson McGraw-Hill Publication 2002