Effectiveness of Fixed-Bed Regenerators for Energy Recovery in Buildings Applications

Energy consumption for ventilation purposes in buildings makes up a considerable portion of HVAC energy consumption. Energy recovery ventilators (ERVs) can reduce the required energy to pre-condition outdoor air in winter and summer seasons. Due to the high ratio of heat transfer area to volume, Fixed-Bed Regenerators (FBRs) can reach high effectiveness up to 90%. However, limited research studies are available for FBRs in HVAC applications. In this paper, a small-scale test facility is used to determine the sensible effectiveness of a FBR. Furthermore, a numerical model is proposed and validated against the experimental results from the small-scale test facility. The numerical results for latent effectiveness have been compared with available data in the literature and the comparison shows a satisfactory agreement between numerical and results from the literature.