Effective cooling of stacked heat-generating bodies in a large room: Comparison between floor and side-wall air injection

A numerical investigation of the air flow and heat transfer phenomena in a ventilated converter valve hall has been carried out using the k-ε turbulence model with scalable wall functions. The geometry involving a large building enclosing heat-generating blocks in three towers (16 tiers each) with inlet and outlet openings was simulated as a three-dimensional domain. Results were obtained for the base case simulating the currently existing conditions in the valve hall and six other cases corresponding to various geometry and inlet flow parameters in an attempt to enhance the current cooling effectiveness. These results include the net air flow in all 15 tower gaps and the maximum temperature in each gap. It is demonstrated that significant improvements in the cooling effectiveness with large reduction in the temperature of the tower surfaces can be achieved without having to increase the inlet air flow rate into the valve hall.