Modelling and applications of annual energy-using simulation module of separated heat pipe heat exchanger

Separate heat pipe heat exchanger (SHP heat exchanger) transports heat from the indoor air to the outdoor air by making use of the temperature difference. It consumes much less energy than split air-conditioners in telecommunication base stations (TBSs) because of no compressor. In this paper an annual energy-using simulation module of SHP was built up in the building energy simulation tool DeST. The SHP model was basing on the theoretical and experiment results of the heat transfer performance and the energy consumption. As the heat transfer quantity of SHP was interplayed with the indoor air temperature, the solution for the models of the dynamic thermal process in building and SHP heat exchanger was the key part, which was carried out by the coupling calculation. The reliability of SHP model and the coupling solution was verified by an empirical test. Finally, case study on the design of air-conditioning systems in TBSs was carried out to illustrate the engineering applications of SHP module.

► SHP heat exchanger's model was built based on the theoretical and experiment results.
► The heat transfer quantity of SHP and room temperature were interplayed.
► The combination of SHP and building thermal model was solved by a decoupling method.
► The simulated result of SHP module was verified by measured results of a real TBS.
► SHP module was valuable for the optimization of envelope parameters and cooling scheme.