Optimization of Ducting in variable volume air conditioning systems using Imperialist Competitive Algorithm

Proper design of ducting in the air conditioning system in ships is one of the most important parameters affecting the comfort of personnel. Currently, ducting on ships is designed based on the maximum transferable discharge in living spaces, while in practice the discharge required by living spaces varies at different time intervals. Therefore, duct design should be designed based on variable air volume. Among the three methods introduced for the design of ductwork for air conditioning systems in the 1997 ASHRAE Standard for ships, the only method based on optimization is the T method. In this method, the goal is to determine the size of the channels to reduce the cost of the life cycle. For variable volume air systems, a method based on the equations of the T-method and using the evolutionary algorithm of colonial competition has been performed in this paper. The conditions of the sample for design based on the proposed optimization method include changes in the inlet air flow rate to the ducts and changes in the rate of energy consumption calculation parameters. The colonial competition algorithm showed that it has the ability to show a more appropriate performance in achieving the optimal answer than the previous algorithms.