Effectiveness of energy wheels from transient measurements

Abstract

Certification of energy wheel effectiveness by a selected international laboratory for many types and sizes of wheel produced by each manufacturer has proven to be very expensive and has been prone to large uncertainties. This research uses a new, low-cost, transient method to predict the effectiveness using only data obtained from transient measurements.

In this thesis, an analytical model is presented for predicting the effectiveness of rotating energy wheels using only the characteristics measured on the same non-rotating wheels exposed to a step change in temperature and humidity. A relationship between the step response and the periodic response of an energy wheel is developed using first order linear system design theory. This allows the effectiveness of an energy wheel to be predicted when the characteristics of a step response are known. The effectiveness correlations and uncertainty bounds for sensible and latent effectiveness of energy wheels determined from transient measurements are thus presented.

The experimental transient testing method and experimental verification of the effectiveness model for several different wheels are also presented in this thesis. The results obtained from the new effectiveness model are shown to agree, within uncertainty bounds, with the results obtained from the standard steady state experimental testing method and numerical simulations.

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