Date of Award

5-17-2024

Document Type

Thesis

Abstract

The earth's changing climate is disproportionately affecting the Arctic and near-arctic regions of the world. Mechanical space cooling is becoming a common requirement to keep indoor spaces comfortable, but the energy required to cool these spaces often contributes further to the climate change causing their necessity. Passive heat emission to the vacuum of deep space with its temperature of 3 K can potentially improve the effectiveness of vapor compression air-conditioning by cooling the condenser to a temperature below the outside air dry bulb temperature, which is the limit for non-evaporative air cooling. This study applies a computer simulation to model cooling systems of three different capacities with two control regimes in Alaska's three largest cities. These cooling systems consist of an air conditioner with its condenser inside a thermal storage tank full of hydronic coolant. The coolant is then piped to an air-cooling convector and a radiative emitter with zone valves to control the flow of coolant so as not to gain energy from the environment. Each simulation was compared to an identical control system lacking a radiative emitter. The simulation models these systems over 120 days during the summer cooling season. Every simulated scenario showed energy savings ranging from 3.8% to 18.4% compared to a control system not fitted with a radiative emitter. This means the installation of a radiative emitter has the potential to save energy and money for any cooling system to which it is applied. The most savings were found in systems with a continuous cooling load, like datacenters and laundry facilities.

Handle

http://hdl.handle.net/11122/15151

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