Intelligent module to promote water-savings and thermal comfort in domestic water heating equipment

• Autor(a) principal: Ferreira, Joana Gomes
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10773/34023
• topic: Thermal systems; Water heating devices; Tankless gas water heaters; Thermal comfort; Domestic hot water; Dynamic models; Modelling; Simulation; Design; Mechanical project

There is a growing concern about to the scarceness of natural resources such as water, which portrait an essential role in domestic water heating applications. Although tankless gas water heaters (TGWH) are widely used, some models present challenges related to sudden and unexpected variations in the demanded hot water flowrate that cannot be anticipated by the equipment controller. These undesired output temperature variations are commonly referred as temperature undershoots and overshoots. Furthermore, there is a high waste of water associated with the long waiting time in cold starts of this household appliance. All of these factors affect the users’ thermal comfort. Modern models are already designed and engineered to overcome these problems. The present dissertation proposes to develop an intelligent module to install in existing or new TGWH devices in order to promote the user thermal comfort as well as promote water savings. The proof of concept of the proposed solution depends on modeling and simulation (in a simulated environment) in order to minimize temperature undershoot and overshoot to values not perceived by users. The mechanical project includes the selection of the components included and the design layout in the proposed solution for an easy to install device.