Comparison Evaluations of VRF and RTU Systems Performance on Flexible Research Platform

Je Hyeon Lee, Piljae Im, Jeffrey D. Munk, Mini Malhotra, Min Seok Kim, Young Hak Song

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

6 Scopus citations

Abstract

The energy performance of a variable refrigerant flow (VRF) system was evaluated using an occupancy-emulated research building in the southeastern region of the United States. Full- and part-load performance of the VRF system in heating and cooling seasons was compared with a conventional rooftop unit (RTU) variable-air-volume system with electric resistance heating. During both the heating and cooling seasons, full- and part-load conditions (i.e., 100%, 75%, and 50% thermal loads) were maintained alternately for 2 to 3 days each, and the energy use, thermal conditions, and coefficient of performance (COP) for the RTU and VRF system were measured. During the cooling season, the VRF system had an average COP of 4.2, 3.9, and 3.7 compared with 3.1, 3.0, and 2.5 for the RTU system under 100%, 75%, and 50% load conditions and resulted in estimated energy savings of 30%, 37%, and 47%, respectively. During the heating season, the VRF system had an average COP ranging from 1.2 to 2.0, substantially higher than the COPs of the RTU system, and resulted in estimated energy savings of 51%, 47%, and 27% under the three load conditions, respectively.

Original languageEnglish
Article number7867128
JournalAdvances in Civil Engineering
Volume2018
DOIs
StatePublished - 2018

Funding

-is effort was supported by Samsung Electronics and U.S. Department of Energy. Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency thereof. -e views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency thereof. -is manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC, under Contract Number DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the U.S. Department of Energy. -e United States Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the United States Government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, world-wide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for United States Government purposes. -is article was written based on two technical reports. Further details for the study can be found in Piljae Im, Mini Malhotra, and Jeffrey D. Munk (2016), Evaluation of Variable Refrigerant Flow Systems Performance on Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Flexible Research Platform: Part 1: Cooling Season Analysis, ORNL/TM-2016/364, and Part 2: Heating Season Analysis, ORNL/TM-2016/365, Oak Ridge, TN. USA. -is work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIT) (no. 2017R1A2B2006424).

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Comparison Evaluations of VRF and RTU Systems Performance on Flexible Research Platform'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this