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Contact: Jodi Dunlop
Phone: 678-539-1140

ATLANTA – While most residential air conditioners work on 100 percent return air to reduce energy costs, this creates a problem in lack of sufficient fresh air.

This is particularly true in hot humid climates like Miami or in northern regions with long winters.

Through a grant from ASHRAE, students at Florida International University in Miami are designing a new type of residential ventilator with enthalpy wheel heat recovery, which will minimize additional energy use while improving indoor air quality.

Twenty-six grants, totaling some $120,000, have been awarded by ASHRAE to colleges and universities worldwide to promote the study and teaching of HVAC&R, encouraging undergraduate students to pursue related careers. The grants are used to design and construct projects.

The residential ventilator project will provide an opportunity for students to develop their problem solving skills but also to practice energy conservation design.

Other ASHRAE grant recipients are:

• All India Shri Shivaji Memorial Society’s College of Engineering, Pune, India, build an experimental setup to understand the enhancement of condensation heat transfer using micro-fin tubes;



• Bradley University, Peoria, Ill., design an apparatus to test fans and diffusers;



• Cairo University, Cairo, heat exchanger performance educational test stand and heat exchanger design software;



• Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, automated camera positioner for particle image velocimetry used in HVAC air distribution studies;



• Hofstra University, Hempstead, N.Y., design and build a multi-purpose heat exchanger apparatus;



• Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, pressurization and depressurization impact on stack effect – experimental study;



• London South Bank University, London, low energy pumpless refrigeration absorption cycle;



• Mapua Institute of Technology, Manila, basic refrigeration and air-conditioning system used for laboratory experiments and simple sensitivity analysis;



• National Chin-Yi Institute of Technology, Taiping, Taichung, Taiwan, design and construction of an HFC-407C machine cooler demonstrator in refrigeration lab;



• Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind., heat transfer measurements in mini-channel cold plate evaporators;



• Purdue University Calumet, Hammond, Ind., thermoelectric refrigeration using nanofluid circulation heat exchangers;



• Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, N.Y., duct and fan design project;



• Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, development of a system for testing the performance of nanofluid flow and heat transfer in a heat exchanger;



• Tanta University, Tanta, Egypt, construction of an integrated hybrid vapor-compression desiccant dehumidification system;



• Texas A&M University, College Station, design and construction of bench-scale ground source heat pump testing laboratory unit;



• University of Georgia, Athens, energy audit of a university classroom/laboratory building and evaluation of energy conservation measures;



• University of Hong Kong, multi-function testing unit for thermal comfort assessment;



• Tri-State University, Angola, Ind., design and construction of a fan-duct system for use in the mechanical engineering laboratory;



• University of Calgary, design of a “biofouling-free” heat exchanger;



• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, development of an HVAC system simulator for laboratory use;



• University of Kraguejevac, Serbia and Montenegro, demonstrator of floor, radiator and domestic water heating from solar heated water by using heat pump;



• University of Portland, design and construction of a heat pump trainer for thermodynamics lab;



• University of Windsor, HVAC metered elbows: reducing losses and noise through the use of turning vanes;



• Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, Ky., centrifugal pump test bed;



• Widener University, Chester, Pa., modification and improvement of a thermodynamic system for cooling and revised cycle air conditioning.