Investigation and development of a composite sandwiched heat sink + insulation panel

• Main Author: Tan, Benedict Zhong Han
• Other Authors: Lye Sun Woh
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2021
• Subjects: Engineering::Mechanical engineering
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/149127
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

With global warming and climate change, countries around the world are experiencing hotter summers and harsher winters. In tropical climates like Singapore, where relative humidity levels are often higher than the comfortable range of humans, the rising average temperatures makes the city increasingly uncomfortable to live in. This leads to a widespread increase in usage of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. Being energy intensive, HVAC systems further increases our carbon footprint. Additionally, they contribute to the Urban Heat Island effect, which also negatively affects thermal comfort in warmer climates. Therefore, there exists an increasing need for engineers and researchers to develop new solutions to complement or replace the HVAC systems, in an effort to reduce our carbon footprint and mitigate the problem of global warming. One of the ways of reducing the workload or requirement for HVAC systems is to manage the heat energy absorbed and released by buildings. The heat transfer properties of building materials have been studied by researchers, with the aim of minimizing the heat energy entering or escaping the building depending on the climate. Engineers around the world are also exploring new methods to remove heat energy from building walls to reduce the overall temperature of buildings in hotter climates. This project aims to develop and investigate the effectiveness of an actively cooled composite heat sink and insulation panel for use in a tropical climate. The panel is designed to intercept heat energy from the sun and building surroundings, preventing heat energy from being absorbed by building walls and warming up the building. The heat absorbed by the heatsink will be removed via induced convection, using air and atomized water mixture as the working fluid.