Acquire data with LabVIEW To investigate effect of physical parameters on The performance of energy recovery ventilators in buildings

The Heating, Ventilation & Air Conditioning (HVAC) system is becoming an essential component in buildings to provide thermal comfort for its occupants. HVAC systems are known to be energy consuming, and one of the method used to mitigate this is to employ an Energy Recovery Ventilator (ERV) to recover energy to offset the load demanded by the HVAC system. The purpose of this project is to evaluate the performance parameters of an ERV, particularly in tropical climates such as Singapore’s. An ERV is capable of exchanging sensible and latent heat across airstream via layers of hydrophilic membranes, hence removing heat and moisture from the hot and humid outdoor air, and transferring it to the outgoing exhaust air. By removing energy from the ventilation airstream, it helps to reduce the energy load on HVAC systems. The ERV used in this project is a counter-cross flow, fixed plate ERV. Various outdoor conditions were simulated by employing a heater and humidifier to alter the temperature and humidity level of the outdoor airstream entering the ERV. Physical parameters such as the mass flow rates and efficiencies (Sensible / latent / enthalpy) were evaluated. It was observed that the sensible and latent efficiencies are primarily dependent on the outdoor temperature and humidity ratio respectively. A greater amount of energy was also transferred at lower mass flow rate. Sensible efficiency also increases when the mass flow rate of the ventilation airstream decrease, or when the mass flow rate of the exhaust airstream increases. This report also focuses on the creation of the program used to acquire experimental data. LabVIEW by National Instruments was used as a platform to collect, display and record data transmitted from the sensors employed in the experiment. Steps used to configure the software and hardware were listed and elaborated for referencing purposes for future project groups.Bachelor of Engineering (Mechanical Engineering