System Performance with Variation of Outdoor Unit Layouts at Building Re-entrants

Air-cooled split-type air conditioners (AC) are very popular in high-rise residential and commercial buildings in Korea. The performance of such AC systems varies significantly with system characteristics and environmental conditions. Particularly, the outdoor condensing unit of the system, if poorly cooled due to high density of AC distribution and restricted outdoor space, will result in large decrease of cooling efficiency and increase of electrical energy consumption and may further jeopardize the system reliability. This paper presents a numerical analysis on the thermal and energy performance of a group of air-cooled air conditioners installed at a courtyard of a high-rise building. The study introduces a series of new energy performance indices to assess the group performance of the AC condensers with different outdoor unit layouts. The results not only indicate the COP of the systems, but also quantify the system capacity and energy consumption. The evaluation method and indices developed are useful for guiding the design of the distribution plan of the AC units at building re-entrants.