Modeling Air Source Heat Pump Performance in Cold Climates

部落学院和大学方案(TCUP)的一个目标是提高为本国土著学生服务的特定高等教育机构的科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)教学和研究能力。在这些机构扩大STEM课程的范围，可以扩大学生在STEM领域追求富有挑战性和回报的职业的机会，提供在可能具有文化意义的领域进行研究的机会，并鼓励社区和世代对科学和数学教育的欣赏。该项目与这一目标直接一致，而且将增加工业和公众可获得的关于在寒冷气候下使用空气源热泵(ASHP)的可行性的数据。阿拉斯加大学费尔班克斯分校布里斯托尔湾校区将对至少三种空气源热泵进行实验室测试，以表征在不同室外温度和热负荷下的效率。所产生的数据将被用来创建ASHP性能模型，该模型将用于确定不再实现燃料节约的边界条件，同时考虑到发电厂需要燃烧的额外燃料以产生ASHP的电力。为了节省燃料，将制定打开和关闭ASHP的控制策略。将开发一个长期模型，估计使用ASHP作为辅助供暖系统，并根据制定的控制策略进行控制，每年可节省多少燃料。长期模型可以应用于阿拉斯加的12个农村社区，以确定在各种现实世界条件下的潜在利益。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

A goal of the Tribal Colleges and Universities Program (TCUP) is to increase the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) instructional and research capacities of specific institutions of higher education that serve the Nation's indigenous students. Expanding the STEM curricular offerings at these institutions expands the opportunities of their students to pursue challenging, rewarding careers in STEM fields, provides for research studies in areas that may be culturally significant, and encourages a community and generational appreciation for science and mathematics education. This project aligns directly with that goal, and moreover will increase the data available to industry and the general public on the feasibility of the use of air-source heat pumps (ASHPs) in cold climates.University of Alaska Fairbanks, Bristol Bay Campus will conduct laboratory tests of at least three models of ASHPs to characterize efficiency at different outdoor temperatures and heat loads. The resulting data will be used to create an ASHP performance model that will be used to identify boundary conditions for which savings in fuel are no longer achieved, considering the additional fuel that needs to be burned in a power plant to produce the electricity for the ASHP. A control strategy for turning the ASHP on and off will be created to save fuel. A long-term model will be developed that estimates the annual savings in fuel achieved by using an ASHP as a supplemental heating system controlled with the developed control strategy. The long-term model may be applied to twelve rural Alaska communities to determine the potential benefit in a variety of real-world conditions.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.