The ventilation and cooling of a power generation facility in the Libyan desert were simulated by SIMTEC. The excessive solar heat adds design challenges, as it must be removed along with the heat produced by the three diesel engines. The solar heat was calculated for the geographic location and orientation of the building by the solar load model of Fluent. Moreover, the study was conducted for the summer, to account for the worst-case scenario of cooling.
The developed model simulated the unsteady buoyant heat transfer case. The employed geometry was realistic, including the engine blocks and their exhausts, the whole piping, the inlets for cooling air and the outlet ducts. Furthermore, all the building materials had their own thermal capacity. Four combinations for the simultaneous work of the power generation engines were studied. As expected, the case of all the three engines presented the largest challenge for the HVAC system. The produced heat flux and air temperature plots along with the renewal rate of air were examined for the whole installation, to assess the capacity of the HVAC system to remove the high heat load.
ANSYS tools: ANSYS FLUENT
Customer: 
