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Fast Fluid Dynamics Model

Data Center

Originating from the computer game industry, Fast Fluid Dynamics (FFD) is a faster alternative to Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) used for fluid flow simulation. Dr. Zuo developed the FFD model for indoor environment modeling in his Ph.D. thesis "" at Purdue University. Since then, he and many other researchers have extended the FFD model for both indoor and outdoor airflow simulation. This page summarizes the development of FFD model by the SBS Lab over the years.

  • Data Center Airflow Management: 

The FFD model is tailored for data center computer room airflow management with new modules added for data center applications. The figure on the right shows temperature contours of an example data center with varying supply flow air ratio produced by FFD simulations. The air ratio is defined as the ratio of the total supply flowrate to the total IT flowrate. It can be seen a high air ratio overcools the data center, but too low of an air ratio can lead to unwanted hot spots. The source code is publicly available  It is also publicaly released in the Modelica Buildings library to support the coupled simulation of indoor airflow and HVAC systems. The FFD model is already adopted by Schneider Electric in their commerical data center tools. The research is described in this paper: X. Han, W. Tian, J. VanGilder, W. Zuo, C. Faulkner 2021. "An Open Source Fast Fluid Dynamics Model for Data Center Thermal Management." Energy and Buildings, 230, pp. 110599.

  • Coupled Simulation of Indoor Environment and Building HVAC and Control System:

A detailed room model was implemented in the open source Modelica Buildings library to enable the coupling of FFD with Modelica. This coupled model enables the co-simulation of airflow and HVAC system to study the optimal design and control of indoor environment. The coupled models are available at the Modelica Buildings library  The research is described in this paper: W. Zuo, M. Wetter, W. Tian, D. Li, M. Jin, Q. Chen 2016. "Coupling Indoor Airflow, HVAC, Control and Building Envelope Heat Transfer in the Modelica Buildings Library.” Journal of Building Performance Simulation, 9(4), pp. 366-381.

  • Simulation of Outdoor Airflow Around Buildings:

FFD was compared to CFD for its ability to simulate natural ventilation in buildings, an important application to saving energy in buildings. The results showed that FFD could predict wind-driven and buoyancy-driven ventilation with reasonable accuracy. The figure on the right shows the velocity contours predicted by CFD (left) and FFD (right) for wind-driven ventilation around a group of buildings, where the prevailing wind is from the southwest direction (lower-left in the figure). The flow upstream is similar between the two, however discrepancies are present for the wake region behind the buildings. This research is described in this paper: M. Jin, W. Zuo, Q. Chen 2013. "Simulating Natural Ventilation in and Around Buildings by Fast Fluid Dynamics." Numerical Heat Transfer, Part A: Applications, 64(4), pp. 273-289.

  • Cross-platform Parallel Computing for Indoor Airflow Simulation:

Dr. Zuo implemented our first parallel verion of FFD in CUDA on a NVIDA GPU in 2009 and achieved 30 times speedup. Our latest parallel version of FFD code was implemented in OpenCL, which is a cross-platform parallel computing language. This code can perform parallel computing on multiple different CPUs or GPUs and achieved up to 1,000 times speedup as described in this paper: W. Tian, T. A. Sevilla, W. Zuo 2017. “A Systematic Evaluation of Accelerating Indoor Airflow Simulations Using Cross Platform Parallel Computing.” Journal of Building Performance Simulation, 10(3), pp. 243-255.

Game Style Demo of FFD Code

A game style demo of mixed convection flow in an empty room was created. Like playing a computer game, this interactive demo allows users to change supply airflow rate and floor temperature, add contaminants into the space and observe the transmission of the contaminants. This demo can be downloaded  The results have been validated in our paper: W. Zuo, Q. Chen 2009. "Real Time or Faster-than-Real-Time Simulation of Airflow in Buildings." Indoor Air, 19 (1), pp. 33-44.

Related Journal Papers:

  • X. Han, W. Tian, J. VanGilder, W. Zuo, C. Faulkner 2021. "" Energy and Buildings, 230, pp. 110599.
  • W. Tian, X. Han, W. Zuo, Q. Wang, Y. Fu, M. Jin 2019. “” Energy and Buildings, 199, pp. 342-251.
  • W. Tian, J.W. VanGilder, X. Han, C.M. Healey, M.B. Condor, W. Zuo 2019. “.” ASHRAE Transactions, 125, pp. 141-148.
  • W. Tian, X. Han, W. Zuo, M. Sohn 2018. "." Energy and Buildings, 165, pp.184-199.
  • W. Tian, T. A. Sevilla, D. Li, W. Zuo, M. Wetter 2018. "." Journal of Building Performance Simulation, 11(1), pp. 99-112.
  • W. Tian, T. A. Sevilla, W. Zuo, M. Sohn 2017. "." Building and Environment, 122, pp. 269-286.
  • W. Tian, T. A. Sevilla, W. Zuo 2017. “.” Journal of Building Performance Simulation, 10(3), pp. 243-255.
  • W. Zuo, M. Wetter, W. Tian, D. Li, M. Jin, Q. Chen 2016. ".” Journal of Building Performance Simulation, 9(4), pp. 366-381.
  • M. Jin, W. Zuo, Q. Chen 2013. "." Numerical Heat Transfer, Part A: Applications, 64(4), pp. 273-289.
  • M. Jin, W. Zuo, Q. Chen 2012. "." Numerical Heat Transfer, Part B Fundamentals, 62(6), pp. 419-438.
  • W. Zuo, M. Jin, Q. Chen 2012. "." Engineering Applications of Computational Fluid Mechanics, 6(2), pp. 234-247, 2012
  • W. Zuo, Q. Chen 2010. "." Building and Environment, 45(3), pp. 747-757.
  • W. Zuo, J. Hu, Q. Chen 2010. "." Numerical Heat Transfer, Part B: Fundamentals, 58(1), pp. 1-16.
  • W. Zuo, Q. Chen 2010. "." HVAC&R Research, 16(6), pp. 785-798.
  • W. Zuo, Q. Chen 2009. "." Indoor Air, 19 (1), pp. 33-44.

Related Conference Proceedings:

  • X. Han, W. Tian, W. Zuo, J.W. VanGilder 2019. “.” Proceeding of the 16th Conference of International Building Performance Simulation Association (Building Simulation 2019), September 2-4, Rome, Italy.
  • W. Tian, J.W. VanGilder, M.B. Condor, X. Han, W. Zuo 2019. “.” The Intersociety Conference on Thermal and Thermomechanical Phenomena in Electronic Systems (ITherm 2019), May 28-31, Las Vegas, NV. 
  • W. Tian, Y. Fu, Q. Wang, T. A. Sevilla, W. Zuo 2018. “.” Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Building Energy and Environment (COBEE2018), pp. 569-574, February 5-9, Melbourne, Australia.  
  • W. Tian, W. Zuo, T. A. Sevilla, M. Sohn 2017. “.” Proceedings of the 12th International Modelica Conference, pp. 55-61, May 15-17, Prague, Czech Republic.
  • D. Li, W. Tian, W. Zuo, M. Wetter 2016. “Simulation Using In Situ Adaptive Tabulation and Fast Fluid Dynamics.” Proceedings of the ASHRAE and IBPSA-USA SimBuild 2016: Building Performance Modeling Conference, pp. 65-71, August 8-12, Salt Lake City, UT.
  • W. Zuo, M. Wetter, D. Li, M. Jin, W. Tian, Q. Chen 2014. “Coupled Simulation of Indoor Environment, HVAC and Control System by Using Fast Fluid Dynamics and the Modelica Buildings Library.” Proceedings of the 2014 ASHRAE/IBPSA-USA Building Simulation Conference, pp. 56-63, September 10-12, Atlanta, GA.
  • M. Jin, Q. Chen, and W. Zuo 2013. “.” Proceedings of CLIMA 2013, the 11th REHVA World Congress and the 8th Conference on Indoor Air Quality, Ventilation and Energy Conservation in Buildings, June 16-19, Prague, Czech.
  • M. Jin, W. Zuo, Q. Chen 2012. “.” Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Building Energy and Environment (COBEE2012), pp. 1055-1062, August 1-4, Boulder, CO.
  • W. Zuo, Q. Chen 2011. “.” Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Indoor Air Quality and Climate (Indoor Air 2011), June 5-10, Austin, TX.
  • W. Zuo, Q. Chen 2010. “.” Proceedings of the 41st International HVAC&R congress, pp. 340-348, December 1-3, Beograd, Serbian.
  • J. Hu, W. Zuo, Q. Chen 2010. “.” Proceedings of the 7th International Indoor Air Quality, Ventilation and Energy Conservation in Buildings Conference (IAQVEC 2010), August 15-18, pp. 55- 62, Syracuse, NY.
  • W. Zuo, Q. Chen 2010. “Improvements on the Fast Fluid Dynamic Model for Indoor Airflow Simulation.” Proceedings of the 4th National Conference of International Building Performance Simulation Association -USA (SimBuild2010), pp. 539-546, August 11-13, New York, NY.
  • W. Zuo, Q. Chen 2009. “.” Proceedings of the 11th Conference of International Building Performance Simulation Association (Building Simulation 2009), pp. 244-249, July 27-30, Glasgow, U.K.
  • W. Zuo, Q. Chen 2009. “.” Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Air Distribution in Rooms (RoomVent 2009), May 24-27, Busan, Korea.
  • W. Zuo, Q. Chen 2007. “.” Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Indoor Air Quality, Ventilation and Energy Conservation in Buildings (IAQVEC 2007), October 28-31, Sendai, Japan.
  • W. Zuo, Q. Chen 2007. “.” Proceedings of the 10th Conference of International Building Performance Simulation Association (Building Simulation 2007), pp. 980-983, September 3-6, Beijing, China.

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