Study of Wyee-Tee Duck Design at Various Protrusion and Guide Vane Location Using CFD

Abstract

The design of the air ducting system in a HVAC system is crucial as it serve its main function of delivering desired air properties at optimum efficiency. However, air flow deficiency in the duct system can caused major issues in an HVAC system; building discomfort, high energy costs, increased noise levels, bad air quality, vibration, etc. One of the main factors in air flow efficiency is the fluid resistance which consist of; friction losses and dynamic losses. Numerous studies have been made to reduce effect of resistance especially at junctions and elbows of a duct system. The objective of this study is to investigate the characteristic of the wye tee duct with protrusion and guide vane installed using CFD method. A variance of the wye tee duct is introduced by installing protrusion and guide vane at various configuration. The flow characteristic is studied using CFD and the best efficiency of the configuration is observed. Simulation study shows that vane protrusion height H=0.05 m and guide vane position L=0.3 gave the best efficiency improvement at 22.29% at main duct section and 2.4% at the branch duct section. This study concludes that it is possible to further increase the wye-tee duct design efficiency with protrusion design and guide vane installation in the section.