SIMULATION OF THE DYNAMIC BEHAVIOR OF A HYDRONIC FLOOR HEATING-SYSTEM

The development of a two-dimensional numerical model for a hydronic he ating panel is described. The model couples the heating panel to an en closure, which in turn is losing heat to the surroundings, and is capa ble of predicting both steady state temperature profiles and transient responses. Both the finite difference method and the finite element m ethod were used to solve the numerical model. Of the two, the finite d ifference method gave slightly higher temperature values and required more execution time. Model predictions are compared with the experimen tal data from a bungalow style house equipped with hydronic heating. S teady state results from the simulation compared well with the experim ental results, while the model predicted a faster response time for th e room air temperature than was observed experimentally. Incorporation of an extra term in the dynamic model to account for heat retention i n the walls of the structure resulted in good agreement between the ex perimental and simulated responses.