Facilities
Building Airflow and Contaminant Transport Laboratory
This
state-of-the-art facility, currently under development at OSU will consist of
two instrumented, commercial scale air loops serving two zones connected by a
stairwell. A particle imaging
velocimetry (PIV) system and gas sampling capabilities are planned for the
facility. The laboratory will be
capable of simulating transport of contaminants released either in the building
zones or in the building system. Immediate
plans for the facility include validation of transport and HVAC system component
models, development of system response protocols and validation of new building
automation and security technologies.
More
Information
Hybrid Ground Source Heat Pump Laboratory
This facility, which is currently under development, will be used to develop
hybrid ground source control strategies and validate hybrid ground-source heap
pump (HGSHP) models for simulation programs. An HGSHP system consists of a
ground-loop heat exchanger (GLHE) with a supplemental heat rejecter (e.g.,
cooling tower, fluid cooler, pond coil, etc.). This system is advantageous
for buildings where the cooling loads are larger than the heating loads.
The bore field can be sized based on the heating loads and supplemental heat
rejecter would allow the system to meet the cooling loads.
The main advantage of this system is that it more closely
balances the heat rejected and extracted over the course of a year. Another
added benefit is the possible decrease in first cost and operating cost compared
to conventional ground source heat pump systems.
Real time experimental data
Live View from the hybrid ground source heat
pump laboratory !
Indoor Environment Laboratory
This
is a photo of Dr. Jeff Spitler pretending to take out a flow nozzle. The flow
nozzles are used to measure the flow rate of air supplied to the room.
The indoor environment laboratory is a recently-
constructed experimental
facility dedicated to the study of heat transfer and air flow inside of
buildings. It consists of a well-insulated room, enclosed inside of a
temperature-controlled guard space. The room has interior dimensions of 12’ x
16’ x 10’ high, and is covered with 118 interchangeable 2’ x 4’
panels.
Each space for a panel can be covered by a heating panel, a cooling panel, an
insulated panel, or an air flow supply or return. The heating panels are
temperature-controlled. A separate ventilation system can supply heated or
cooled air at an accurately measured flow rate. Temperatures of the panel
surfaces, supply air, return air, and room air are measured with thermocouples
connected to a Fluke Helios datalogger. This facility is described in
further detail by two master's theses (Sanders, 1995;
Ferguson, 1997).
more pictures
Building Heat Transfer Laboratory
This
experimental facility, which was designed and constructed specifically to
measure cooling loads, has several key features. First, it consists of two
separate buildings of differing thermal mass in order to demonstrate the ability
of the cooling load procedures to correctly differentiate between thermally
massive and thermally lightweight structures. The facility is well sealed to
minimize the infiltration heat gain and has a high percentage of glazed surfaces
in order to maximize solar heat gains. The facility can be configured with or
without a suspended ceiling, blinds, carpet and furniture.
The facility was constructed in an open field on the campus of Oklahoma
State University. Temperatures, humidity, wind speed and solar radiation are
just a few of the measurements logged every five minutes at a Mesonet weather
station located within a half mile of the facility. The buildings' air handling
systems are identical, constant volume systems that continuously adjust the deck
temperature to maintain a constant room temperature. The ventilative flow rate
and room inlet and outlet temperatures are the critical measurements required to
control the system and calculate the space cooling load.
These buildings were being used for validation of cooling load calculation
procedures as part of
ASHRAE
1117-RP.
more
pictures
Medium-Scale Bridge Deck
<![CDATA[
]]>
http://www.smartbridge.okstate.edu
more
pictures
Laboratory Snow-Making Machine
This is a refined version of a snow-making machine developed by former students
Mike Longwill, Brad Schultz, and Devin Thompson for their senior capstone design
project. Their report may be found here.
more pictures
The Pond
This three acre pond serves as a lower "boundary condition" for the
medium-scale test bridge. Several pond heat exchangers are being tested
here also.
more
pictures
Surface Heat Rejecters
A sidewalk, two shallow ponds and a saturated "sand box", all with
embedded tubing are being tested for application as supplemental heat rejecters
for ground-source heat pump systems. For some commercial buildings, the
addition of a supplemental heat rejecter can decrease both the first cost and
the operating cost compared to a standard ground-source heat pump system.
See Chiasson's thesis for more
information.
