Experimental investigation of a decentralized heat recovery ventilation system

Indoor air quality is an important issue for improving and maintaining the indoor environment because it is directly related to people's health and work performance. These days, in many settlements, the applicability of natural ventilation is limited in the face of the decreasing infiltration loads, increased atmospheric pollution, and the climatic conditions. Therefore, the use of mechanical systems that are designed to ensure proper ventilation is becoming widespread. This paper presents full-scale experimental research of a wall-integrated decentralized ventilation system with heat recovery in the laboratory conditions. The heat recovery unit includes a ceramic block for sensible thermal energy storage. Parametric experimental studies were carried out to obtain the temperature distributions and the thermal capacity of the ceramic block during the supply and exhaust modes of working. In order to simulate the winter and summer conditions, two large scale temperature-controlled rooms are built up. The duration of the ventilation period is varied to be 1, 2, 5, 7.5 and 10-min. Experimental measurements indicate that 2 min of operation time shows the best thermal performance in terms of maintaining a comfortable indoor temperature with the least energy consumption. And some shortcomings were observed about the fan and thermal storage limitations.