CFD results calibration from sparse sensor observations with a case study for indoor thermal map

• Published in: Building and environment Vol. 117; pp. 166 - 177
• Main Authors: Jiang, Chaoyang, Soh, Yeng Chai, Li, Hua, Masood, Mustafa K., Wei, Zhe, Zhou, Xiaoli, Zhai, Deqing
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Elsevier Ltd 15.05.2017; Elsevier BV
• Subjects: Air conditioners; Calibration; Case studies; CFD calibration; CFD results calibration; Computer simulation; Cost function; Data points; Editing; Image editing; Low rank matrix approximation; Optimization; Sensors; Simulation; Sparse sensor observation; Thermal map estimation; CFD calibration; Image editing; Low rank matrix approximation; Thermal map estimation; CFD results calibration; Sparse sensor observation
• ISSN: 0360-1323; 1873-684X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.buildenv.2017.02.007

Current CFD calibration work has mainly focused on the CFD model calibration. However no known work has considered the calibration of the CFD results. In this paper, we take inspiration from the image editing problem to develop a methodology to calibrate CFD simulation results based on sparse sensor observations. We formulate the calibration of CFD results as an optimization problem. The cost function consists of two terms. One term guarantees a good local adjustment of the simulation results based on the sparse sensor observations. The other term transmits the adjustment from local regions around sensing locations to the global domain. The proposed method can enhance the CFD simulation results while preserving the overall original profile. An experiment in an air-conditioned room was implemented to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method. In the experiment, four sensor observations were used to calibrate a simulated thermal map with 167×365 data points. The experimental results show that the proposed method is effective and practical. •We developed a new problem: CFD results calibration from sparse sensor observations.•We took inspiration from the image editing technique and formulated the calibration problem as an optimization problem.•We provided a computationally efficient method to solve the optimization problem.•The proposed method can enhance the CFD simulation results based on sparse sensor observations.•The proposed method is shown effective to calibrate a simulated indoor thermal map.