Diseño y simulación de un sistema de calefacción por piso radiante para un refugio de montaña ubicado a 4000 msnm en el volcán Cayambe.

Abstract

The present work deals with the design of a radiant floor heating system for the Cóndor Lodge mountain refuge located at 3 606 meters above sea level on the Cayambe volcano. The design process started with the collection of the data useful for the subsequent heating loads calculation were obtained. The heating load calculation was carried out according to the EN 12831 standard’s method for a comfort temperature of 20 °C. Once the heat flux required for each room were known, the radiant floor was designed following the thermal boundary conditions according to the UNE EN 1264 standard’s method. Then, a steady state simulation of one of the highest thermal emission circuits was executed using the Ansys/Fluent simulation software. In the computational study, the operative variables of the system, obtained at the design stage, were applied as boundary conditions to verify the design applying the standard. The results of surface temperature, water temperature drop and heat flux density obtained by both methods differ minimally from one method to another. Therefore, the thermal behavior of the system in the steady state is satisfactorily described in this study.