MicroFlo

How it works

MicroFlo enables you to simulate internal conditions in six easy steps:

• Run ApacheSim to generate boundary conditions
• In MicroFlo, select the rooms you wish to simulate. Define surface boundary conditions if not using ApacheSim, and make any adjustments (eg. you can place supply and extract grilles)
• Add additional components (eg. people, computers, radiators)
• MicroFlo's automatic grid generation tool creates a grid based on the shape of the model, windows, surface objects and component
• Run and monitor simulation progress
• Review results

Input Options

Boundary Conditions

• From ApacheSim
  • Air temperature and moisture content
  • Surface, window and door temperatures
  • All incoming and outgoing air mass flow, temperature and moisture content through each opening
  • Convective room gains split into occupant, equipment, lighting and plant
• Alternatively, all these properties can be defined easily through the MicroFlo interface

Surface Object Properties

• Supply grilles
• Extract grilles
• Heat flux patches
• Temperature patches

Include / exclude shading surfaces: adjacent buildings, topographical shades, local shades

CFD Components

• Radiator
• Air heat source
• Solid heat source
• Any solid component created by user

Automatic Grid Generation

• Grids can be added to increase the detail in particular regions of the model
• Non-fixed grids can be removed
• Grid regions can be edited to change the density between fixed gridlines

CFD Control Settings

• Turbulence Models: K-e (default) and Constant effective viscosity
• User defined or MicroFlo calculated (default) surface convective heat transfer coefficients
• Default initial surface temperatures. This is ignored if the boundary conditions file is available
• The default size of the cell grid for automatic grid

Analysis Options

• Simulate both internal and external air flow and thermal problems
• Pre-set initial conditions for quicker convergence
• Discretisation options: Upwind (default), Hybrid and Power Law
• A simulation monitor enables you to run, pause and re-start calculations. Additional options available to:
  • Switch turbulence model
  • Switch between isothermal and thermal simulation
  • Monitor values of variables at points of choice within the domain

Outputs

• MicroFlo predicts:
  • internal air flow temperature, direction and velocity
  • external air flow direction and velocity
  • external static pressure
• Results are accessed via graphical views of 2D slices at any grid line. For example, if you select a particular Z-grid (eg. height) you will get a 2D X and Y-dimension display of the selected variable (eg. temperature or velocity)
• The range, scale and colour of contours and vectors can be adjusted to improve results interpretation