WO2014029895A1

WO2014029895A1 - Architecturally integrated thermo-active air-conditioning system using air and including multiple energy sources

Info

Publication number: WO2014029895A1
Application number: PCT/ES2013/000190
Authority: WO
Inventors: Jesus CASTELLANOS ORTEGA; Adolfo Castellanos Ortega
Original assignee: Castellanos Ortega Jesus; Adolfo Castellanos Ortega
Priority date: 2012-08-24
Filing date: 2013-08-09
Publication date: 2014-02-27
Also published as: ES2451167A1; ES2451167B1

Abstract

The invention relates to an architecturally-integrated thermo-active air-conditioning system using air and including multiple energy sources, characterised in that it includes the following elements in a closed circuit: 1. thermo-active top slabs and slabs (3, 5) through which the conditioned air passes, the temperature thereof being transmitted to the mass of the concrete, which, owing to its thermal inertia, acts simultaneously as an energy storage means and a radiant heated floor; 2. as well as one or more of the following elements, namely 2.a. solar panels (7) for producing hot air, designed to blend in with the roof slates or tiles (10), 2.b. drains (15) in the subsoil or basement walls, modified to collect the stable temperature of the earth (13) surrounding the building; 3. ducts for conveying the air through the fans which, optionally, include other auxiliary devices, such as fans (4), probes, exchangers, chimneys (16), heat pumps (17, 18), boilers, etc.

Description

AIR THERMOACTIVE AIR CONDITIONING SYSTEM WITH MULTIPLE ENERGETIC SOURCES AND ARCHITECTURAL INTEGRATION.

Technical sector

The invention is part of the bioclimatic and air conditioning sector in general as well as the production and storage of renewable energy applied to construction.

State of the art

The air conditioning of buildings is obtained by different techniques that involve a greater or lesser contribution of external energy from various sources: electricity, solar, biomass, fossil fuels, gas, geothermal energy, etc.

Solar panels, photovoltaic or thermal, are imposed on roofs and facades, geothermal, cogeneration, biomass or heat pumps are increasingly frequent energy production systems. As for storage, batteries for electric power and hot water accumulators for DHW and, very rarely, for heating stand out.

For the use of heat, radiant floors are proving to be the system that provides more comfort, both for heating and for cooling the environment. This has led to the creation of the concept of so-called thermoactive floor slabs, TABS in English (Thermo-active building systems). They consist of floor slabs that house pipes, usually made of plastic material, through which hot or cold water is passed, depending on whether it is winter or summer. The great thermal inertia of the concrete, makes the temperature very stable in the enclosures in which it is used, in contrast to those in which the ambient air is directly heated, either with radiators or heat pumps.

Water is usually used as a carrier element due to its high specific heat and, therefore, the small diameters of its ducts. Its disadvantages: corrosion, calcification, leaks that can cause great damages, cost of the pumps, space and duration of the accumulators, when there are them. Complications that arise when integrating different heat or cold production systems in the same installation, and perhaps technically the most important, its limited range of use between 0 and 100 °. As for combining several systems in a circuit, they are usually only done with solar thermal panels by water on deck with a single support system for heating or air conditioning production: heat pump, (geothermal or aerothermal), fuel, gas or biomass boiler, or, recently, gas microcogeneration apparatus.

To solve the problems associated with water or fluids carrying cold or heat, we propose a system that can be integrated and mimicked in the structure of any building, and that uses air in all phases of the thermal cycle of air conditioning: Production and distribution of cold or heat and storage in building materials. It consists of a closed circuit for air passage to which the solar panels and the geothermal drainage variant that we present in this patent application can be coupled, in addition to some or several of the production systems of cold or hot air conditioning currently known .

Description.

The system proposed in this patent application consists of a closed circuit of air ducts, moved by simple fans, which includes:

1. - A floor, slab or technical floor, characterized by integrating air passage ducts, in the form of a maze. Its mission is, thanks to its great thermal inertia, to serve as heat or cold storage, while also damping the high temperatures that air can reach in chimneys or boilers. Simultaneously it is the thermal emitter, by radiation.

2. a.- A solar cover characterized by integrating air ducts under glass sheets, which can take any measure, color and shape to completely blend in with the outer elements of the roof: slate pieces or flat tiles, for example .

2. b.- Geothermal collector, characterized in that the closed circuit air is passed through a moisture drain, built in direct contact with the surrounding terrain, under the subsoil slab or behind the basement walls. In this way, the air takes the temperature of the land that is usually stable throughout the year (from 10 to 18 ° C), so it serves to cool the thermal slabs in summer.

3. - Vertical fans and ducts characterized in that they will allow to connect, as support, other hot or cold air production elements, such as heat pumps, chimneys, stoves, electric heaters, boilers (gas, biomass, or cogeneration) , in addition to air / water exchangers for the production of ACS. Our system solves the two problems associated with the use of air for air conditioning:

1. - Possibility of contamination by fungi, bacteria, insects, dust, humidity, etc .: For this, the movement is carried out in a closed circuit. This is the differentiating aspect of the typical use of air conditioners or electric heaters.

2. - The low specific heat of the air, which makes it unsuitable for thermal storage, as well as the large differences in maximum temperatures provided by the mentioned support heat production systems (From -16 ° to 450 ° C). In the system that we propose, heat or cold passes to the slabs and floors of the building, which, thanks to its enormous mass and thermal inertia, temper the heat of radiation at normal temperatures of use (from 15 to 28 ° C) and they are those that assume the function of storage and diffusion of cold or heat.

Brief description of the drawings.

Figure 1.- Description of preferred embodiment.

Figure 2.- Detail of the solar roof seen from its upper part, where the veneered sheet, the duct and the practicable cover (19) are appreciated, as well as the integration of the glasses with the slate (scratched to better understand the difference with Glass).

Figure 3.- Detail of the solar cover seen from its lowest part.

Figure 4.- Typical slab-vault slab, seen from one of its ends, in which the openings for connection with the vertical and distribution ducts are shown. The hollow may be in its upper or lower face and may consist of elbow tubes.

Figure 5.- Detail of chimney coupling in the duct system.

Figure 6.- Example of a "labyrinth" plant or air path under the floor in a room with attached bathroom (to the left of the image). The feet of the vertical ducts made on site are appreciated.

Description of Preferred Embodiment

1.- Storage and radiation of thermal energy: Slab or active floor slabs: On the insulation (1), a concrete or ceramic compression slab or layer (2) is placed. In addition to support, it has the function of storing heat Thanks to its mass. On this, partitions (3) and lids of any material are raised, to generate air ducts with a labyrinth arrangement, arranged so that it can control, depending on its route, the heat or cold of various rooms separately. For this, both the dimensioning of the ducts and the placement of fans (4) and hatches (19 in figure 2) that are operated from the outside that regulate the air flow will be used. The surface of the material (5) of the upper face of the duct will be airtight. It may be the floor covering itself, for example wood or marble flooring. In other cases, it will support the coating and may receive a new compression layer that, with its additional mass, will increase the storage capacity of the system.

For intermediate floor slabs, the system to be used will depend on the users of the different levels being different (apartments, flats or condominiums) or the same (chalets, villas or townhouses).

1. - In the case of apartments, the entire system must be similar to the one already described, with an insulation (1) that protects the user from the lower floor, located on the floor, equivalent to the slab (14) that we see in the drawing. Upwards the scheme is repeated. When space under the floor is not available, nor is it too high to recreate the floor, extra-thin insulations will be chosen on which the labyrinths will be executed by means of battens that will replace the tabs (3), which will receive the coating of ground. Alternatively, lying hollow ceramic bricks, arranged in the form of a maze, can be used. In the event that it does not have heights greater than 3 cm., It will be necessary to establish prior and subsequent distribution ducts to the floor exits and a project that carefully calculates the flows and work of the corresponding fans.

2.- In the case of buildings of two or more levels that correspond to the same user, the gaps of the joists-vaults may be used to transmit the air and store the heat, the distribution ducts may take the forms of false beams located at each end of the joists. Isolation between floors can be dispensed with. (Figure 4).

Thermal energy production:

2. a.- Solar energy collector for heat production.

Complete roof or solar panels for hot air production characterized by being constituted by two complementary elements: a sheet metal (6) of the type used for roofs of industrial buildings. It is fixed on the outside, glass or transparent plastic (7) or translucent that cover it, leaving free the space between the rails that forms the sheet to circulate air in its interstices, which is heated as it passes through it, due to the effect of solar radiation. For its operation as a solar collector, the sheet will have one or several perforations in its lower part (8) through which the air coming from the closed circuit will enter, and other holes in the upper part (9) for its exit. These will be carried out in such a way that they do not harm the use as a roof enclosure and waterproofing of the slabs. In the preferred embodiment and in order to achieve its architectural integration, it is proposed to use glass of dimensions and shades of color such that they can be combined without any frame separation, with slate plates (10) or tiles, for

which can be used the usual fixings and support of the same.

For optimized use, the sheet to be used will comprise a sandwich type element with three layers, the upper one will be the one already mentioned with longitudinal freckled reliefs, the intermediate one will be an insulator resistant to high temperatures, such as rock wool or glass wool (12 ) and the lower one, which could be decorative: in veneer, wood, plasterboard or others. In this way the roof enclosure integrates: waterproofing, insulation, ceiling decoration and, thanks to the superior glass cover we propose, the production of hot air (or cold at summer nights, if needed lower the floor temperature).

2.b.- Geothermal energy, to cool or cool the inhabited space:

Geothermal collector: This involves modifying the construction elements that remain in direct contact with the land surrounding the building (13): supports of the lower slab (14) of the hearth and basement walls. Instead of gravel or the usual plastic drains, we propose bricks (15) or blocks with holes like those of the patent ES 2346616. Its objective will be the thermal transmission, by simple contact, of the natural temperature of the land (normally between 10 to 18 ° to one meter deep) to the air that circulates in its holes. This will normally be used to cool the circuit, usually in summer. It may be connected directly to the closed circuit or indirectly in an independent and open circuit that feeds an exchanger or the outdoor unit of a heat pump to improve its thermal efficiency (COP). Thanks to the fact that the air never passes inside the habitable space, the usual inconvenience of other systems of geothermal collection by air, such as the Provencal or Canadian well, affected by problems of condensation and proliferation of fungi or bacteria is eliminated. In our invention, the Soil moisture in contact with the external collection elements is an advantage, because it improves thermal transmission.

3.- Vertical distribution of thermal energy and inclusion of support elements: The air ducts (11) will be connected to the lower and upper perforations of the solar cover. These may be additionally provided with a trapdoor (19 in figure 2) manually or mechanically operated to open the circuit when excessive heat occurs, as well as an outlet for an air-water exchanger that allows the production of domestic hot water (DHW) .

Alternatively, the vertical ducts can be made with other construction elements such as plasterboard or ceramic partition walls with a vertical hole. Since they are air ducts, any support system such as stoves (16) can be integrated with the chimney jacket by double concentric tube, indoor air conditioning units (17) preferably with fan coil and free cooling (18), cogeneration boilers, and any other present or future device that heats or cools the air or uses it as a carrier fluid. The economic advantage is that they are usually lower cost systems than those that use water or liquids and the possible leaks in the system are not important. The entire system can be controlled by fans and dampers, manually or automatically.

Claims

1. - Thermoactive air conditioning system with multiple energy sources and architectural integration characterized in that the air moves, with the help of fans, through a closed circuit that includes the passage under the ground, in contact with slabs or floors, so that these act as storage and radiation elements of heat or cold contained in the air.

2. - Thermoactive air conditioning system according to claim 1, characterized in that the air duct under the floor has a labyrinth shape to guarantee uniform heat distribution.

3. - Thermoactive air conditioning system, according to claim 1, with multiple energy sources and architectural integration characterized in that the interior gaps of the floor are used to pass the air and store heat, providing them with air passages at their ends.

4. - Thermoactive air conditioning system with multiple energy sources and architectural integration, according to claims 1, 2 and 3, characterized by a solar thermal energy collector cover comprising a sheet metal, which receives on its outer face plates of glass, of similar size and shape to the rest of the roof, slate, plate or tile elements, to become a thermal energy collector through the air that flows through the gaps between the plate and the glass.

5. - Thermoactive air conditioning system according to claim 4 characterized in that the sheet metal has a high temperature resistant insulation adhered to its lower face and perforations at its ends that allow the passage of air, without damaging the waterproofing capacity of the sheet .

6. - Thermoactive air conditioning system with multiple energy sources and architectural integration, according to claims 1, 2 and 3, characterized in that the air circuit passes under the floor slab or after the basement retaining walls, in contact directly with the surrounding terrain, to capture its geothermal energy, while the conduits that constitute that part of the circuit perform the function of draining the possible subsoil humidities.

7. - Thermoactive air conditioning system according to claims 1 and 2, characterized in that the ducts of the circuit can accept contributions of hot or cold air by connecting other common systems in air conditioning, such as heat pumps, fireplaces, stoves, or boilers of any kind, including those of