AN EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH TO STUDY OF PRESSURE LOSSES IN AIR CONDITIONING DUCT SYSTEM

Mechanical Engineering

This paper focuses mainly upon the losses in the flow of the air flowing through air conditioning duct used in household and other application. These losses are mainly pressure and velocity losses and mostly caused due to sudden changes in cross section area and various fitting used for ducting. As we know circular ducts require the least material for a given flow rate and allowable pressure drop, rectangular ducts are generally preferred in practice as they fit easily into the building construction thus occupying less space, and they are also easy to fabricate. Dynamic pressure loss takes place whenever there is a change in either the velocity or direction of airflow due to the use of a variety of bends and fittings in air conditioning ducts. Some of the commonly used fittings are enlargements, contractions, elbows, branches, dampers etc. The major pressure drop as air flows through these fittings is not because of viscous drag (friction) but due to momentum change. As per the Darcy–Weisbach equation, in turbulent flows, the dynamic loss is proportional to square of velocity. In this paper we experimentally approached the direct relation between pressure loss and velocity.

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