Case Study: Nagoya City University achieves more efficient air-conditioning energy management with Hexagon Cradle CFD

Applying CFD to increase air‑conditioning system life cycle energy efficiency

Nagoya City University, represented by Dr. Gyuyoung Yoon, was researching ways to optimize building energy consumption, with a particular focus on improving air-conditioning efficiency. The challenge was to enhance the accuracy of the LCEM (Life Cycle Energy Management) tool, a mandatory simulation software for public buildings in Japan, which only considered one-dimensional conditions and could not account for complex, real-world indoor temperature distributions.

Vendor Hexagon's computational fluid dynamics software, scSTREAM, was coupled with the LCEM tool. This integration allowed for a three-dimensional analysis of indoor thermal environments, creating a more realistic and accurate simulation of air-conditioner performance. The solution provided by Hexagon enabled the university to account for part-load operations and temperature variations, leading to more effective strategies for managing energy consumption over the entire life cycle of an air-conditioning system.

Nagoya City University

Gyuyoung Yoon

Associate Professor of Design and Architecture