ADAPTIVE LOW-COST HOME COOLING SYSTEM

Chua Chee Kiong

Bachelor of Engineering with Honours (Electronic and Computer Engineering)

2011/2012

ur P.ICHIDMAT MAIC~UMAT QICADEMIK • SARAWAK UNIMAS

Grade: _ _ ___11111111111111,11111111111 1000268808

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Final Year Project Report rn Masters D PhD D

DECLARATION OF ORIGINAL WORK

This declaration is made on the _1__ day of J \.\\j 2012.

Student's Declaration:

I _CHUA CHEE KIONG (20827) from FACULTY OF ENGINEERING (pLEASE INDICATE STUDENT'S NAME, MATRIC NO. AND FACULTY) hereby declare that the work entitled ADAPTIVE LOW-COST HOME COOLING SYSTEM is my original work. I have not copied from any other students' work or from any other sources except where due reference or acknowledgement is made explicitly in the text, nor has any part been written for me by another person.

CHUA CHEE KIONG (20827) Date submitted Name of the student (Matric No.)

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I DR. WAN AZLAN BIN W~ZAINAL ABIDIN (SUPERVISOR'S NAME) hereby certifies that the work entitled ADAPTIVE LOW-COST HOME COOLING SYSTEM was prepared by the above named student, and was submitted to the FACULTY OF

•ENGINEERING as a full fulfillment for the conferment of Bachelor of Engineering with Honours (EI~onic and Computer Engineering) and the aforementioned work, to the best of my knowledge, is the said student's work.

Received for examination by: Dr. Wan Azlan bin Wan Zainal Abidin Date: '-"7/I:l ­

(Name of the supervisor)

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v Pusat Khidmat MakJumat Akademit.: UNIVERSm MALAYSIA SARAWAJ\.

ADAPTIVE LOW-COST HOME COOLING SYSTEM

CHUA CHEE KIONG

This project is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Bachelor ofEngineering with Honours

(Electronic and Computer Engineering)

Faculty of Engineering

UNIVERSITI MALAYSIA SARAWAK

201112012

Dedicated to my beloved family and friends

I ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First of all, I would like to dedicate thousands of thank to my supervisor,

Dr. Wan Azlan Bin Wan Zainal Abidin for his guidance and advices throughout the

progress of this project. Dr. Wan has always been patient in discussing about the

problems and the solutions for the project.

Furthermore, I would like to thank all of the lecturers ofUNIMAS's Faculty of

Engineering for their patient lectures, teachings, advices and guidance within the four

years' courses. The knowledge gained in these four years' courses helped a lot in the

process of development in this project.

Last but not least, a grateful appreciation would like to be dedicated to my

dearest family and friends for their help and support. Their support is significant to

me along the completion of this project.

ii

ABSTRAK

Penduduk Malaysia sentiasa mengalami ketidakselesaan termal di tempat tinggal

mereka terutamanya rumah yang berkos rendah kerana Malaysia mengalami ciri-ciri

iklim khatulistiwa, iaitu suhu yang tinggi dan seragam serta kelembapan yang tinggi.

Jadi, tempat tinggal mereka amat memer]ukan sistem penyejukan supaya dapat

mencapai tahap keselesaan termal. Sistem penyejukan yang dapat memberikan

penjimatan tenaga elektrik, kesan keselesaaan termal, dan berkos rendah menjadi

keutamaan. Objektif kajian ini ialah menghasilkan sistem penyejukan yang sesuai

untuk rumah yang berkos rendah dan sistem yang dapat mengawasi bacaan suhu and

kelembapan dalam rumah. Fokus kajian ini ialah penggunaan rekaan litar sensor,

rekaan litar sistem pengawalan dengan Programmable Integrated Circuit (PIC),

rekaan sistem penyejukan, dan rekaan peri sian untuk tujuan pengawasan. Apabila

keadaan ketidakselesaan terma berlaku di rumah yang berkos rendah, sistem yang

direka dapat mengaktifkan teknologi sistem penyejukan secara automatik dan ia

dikawal oleh litar pengawal sensor dan program pengguna grafik yang boleh

mengekalkan keadaan keselesaan terma dalam persekitaran rumah yang berkos

rendah dengan suhu udara dalam julat daripada 26.0 °c kepada 30.7 °c dan

kelembapan relatif adalah sentiasa lebih tinggi daripada 70.0%.

III

ABSTRACT

Malaysia's citizen is experiencing thennal discomfort in their homes, particularly

low-cost houses because Malaysia experience the equatorial climate with high and

unifonn temperature as well as high humidity. So, they are in dire need of cooling

system in their home to achieve the level of thermal comfort. Cooling system which

can provide energy savings, the effect of thennal comfort, and low price are

preferable. Thus, objective of the study is to develop a suitable cooling system for

low-cost house and a system to monitor the temperature and humidity data inside the

house. The focus of this study is the implementation of hardware by using sensor

circuit, Programmable Integrated Circuit (PIC) circuit as controller system, cooling

system, and the implementation of the software for monitoring system. When the

thennal discomfort condition occurs in the .ow-cost house, the developed system is

able to activate the cooling system technology automatically and it is controlled by a

sensor controller circuit and Graphical User Interface program (GUI) that can

maintain the thennal comfort condition in the environment of low-cost houses with

the air temperature in the range of 26.0 °C to 30.7 °C and relative humidity is always

higher than 70.0%.

IV

Pusat Khldmat MakIumat Akademik UNIVERSm MALAYSIA SARAWAK

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents Page

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 11

LIST OF TABLES Vlll

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Xlll

ABSTRAK III

ABSTRACT IV

TABLE OF CONTENTS V

LIST OF FIGURES IX

Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Project Overview 1

1.2 Problem Statements 2

1.3 Project Objectives 4

1.4 Expected Outcomes 4

1.5 Report Outlines 5

Chapter 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 7

2.1 Introduction to Low-Cost House 7

2.1.1 Issues and Challenges 8

2.1.2 Housing Constructions 9

2.2 Thermal Comfort 14

v

Chapter 3 METHODOLOGY 31

3.1 Introduction 31

3.2 Work Plan 32

3.3 Real Time Experiment 36

3.4 Controller System 39

3.5 Data Measurement System 44

3.6 Coo ling System 47

Chapter 4 RESULTS, ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION 50

4.1 System Architecture 50

4.2 Analysis on Real Time Experiment 51

4.3 Controller System Architecture 58

4.4 Data Measurement System Architecture 65

VI

704.5 Cooling System Architecture

4.6 System Integration 71

4.6.1 Progress of System Integration 73

4.6.2 Alternative Function in GUI program for 77

System Integration

Chapter 5 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 82

5.1 Conclusion 82

5.2 Recommendations 84

REFERENCES 91

APPENDIX A: Component Specification 99

APPENDIX B: PIC Firmware 104

APPENDIX C: GUI Program Source Code 107

Vll

LIST OF TABLES

Table Page

3.1 Work plan 33

4.1 Data analysis of temperature on 12 November 2011 53

4.2 Data analysis of temperature on 13 November 2011 54

4.3 Data analysis of temperature on 17 November 2011 55

4.4 Data analysis of relative humidity on 12, 13, and 17 57

November 2011

Vlll

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure Page

2.1 Concrete tile roof and zinc roof 10

2.2 The situation of two houses with and without radiant 11

barrier

2.3 Wall surface area between two houses 12

2.4 Construction of walls 12

2.5 Types ofwindows design 13

2.6 The effect of air circulation based on location of 14

windows and doors

2.7 Seven-point thermal sensation scale 16

2.8 Ceiling fan 25

2.9 Wind turbine ventilator 25

2.10 Process of wind turbine ventilator 26

2.11 Simple evaporative air cooler 28

2.12 Block diagram of adaptive control system 29

3.1 Block diagram of system 32

3.2 Overview of system 32

3.3 Flow chart of project development 35

3.4 Flow chart of real time experiment 37

3.5 Layout of low-cost house 37

3.6 Infrared thermo-hygrometer 38

IX

I 3.7 Measuring point in low-cost house 38

3.8 Flow chart of controller system development 41

3.9 Temperature sensor LM35 41

3.10 Humidity sensor HSM-20G 42

3.11 Microcontroller PIC18F4550 42

3.12 USB cable 43

3.13 PIC start-up kit 43

3.14 Temperature sensor part schematic circuit 43

3.15 Humidity sensor part schematic circuit 43

3.16 Sensor controller circuit design 44

3.17 Flow chart ofdata measurement system development 46

3.18 Flow chart of cooling system development 48

3.19 Prototype ofcooling system technology 49

3.20 Cooling system schematic circuit 49

3.21 Alert of thermal discomfort schematic circuit 49

4.1 Block diagram of the project 51

4.2 Each measuring point in low-cost house 52

4.3 Graph of air temperature against time on 12, l3, and 56

17 November 2011

4.4 Graph of relative humidity against time on 12, l3, and 57

17 November 2011

4.5 Humidity sensor schematic circuit 59

4.6 PIC circuit 60

4.7 PIC firmware files overview 60

4.8 main.c (configuration bits) 61

x

61 4.9 main.c (Buffer declaration)

4.10 main.c (Buffer assignment) 62

4.11 usb_descriptoLc (VID and PID) 63

4.12 HardwareProfile.h (Power supply configuration) 63

4.13 HardwareProfi1e.h (Pin configuration) 64

4.14 Controller system schematic circuit 65

4.15 Startup.h 65

4.16 Form1.h (Monitoring page) 66

4.17 Email.h 67

4.18 About.h (System explanation) 67

4.19 Retrieve the data from controller system 68

4.20 Convert the digital data to actual value 68

4.21 Testing the accuracy of system with thermometer 69

4.22 Testing the accuracy of system with anemometer 69

4.23 Air circulation under ceiling fan 70

4.24 Prototype of ceiling fan in low-cost house 70

4.25 Adaptive construction circuit and alert circuit 71

4.26 Low-cost house prototype 72

4.27 House plan for low-cost house 73

4.28 Flow chart of system integration 74

4.29 GUI program before connection of sensor controller 75

circuit

4.30 GUI program after connection of sensor controller 75

circuit

4.31 The status of cooling fan in house 76

Xl

4.32 GUI program under thermal discomfort condition 76

4.33 The status of cooling fan under thermal discomfort 76

condition

4.34 The status of alert under thermal discomfort condition 77

4.35 Error message box 77

4.36 Selecting the function ofdatabase system in notepad 78

4.37 Database in notepad 78

4.38 Database in excel 79

4.39 The average reading, maximum reading, and 79

minimum reading

4.40 Selecting the function of file sharing via email 80

4.41 The step of file sharing via email function 80

4.42 File sharing via email successful 81

4.43 File sharing via email failed 81

xu

I

AC

ADC

ASHRAE

a.m.

CIBSE

CIS

clo

DC

ET

ft2

GUI

HID

ID

110

ISO

ISO 7730

kQ

met

MRT

LIST OF ABBREVIA'TIONS

Alternating current

Analog to digital converter

American Society ofHeating, Refrigerating and Air

Conditioning Engineers

Ante meridiem

Chartered Institution ofBuildings Services Engineers

Construction Industry Standards

Average clothing

Direct current

Effective temperature

Square feet

Graphical user interface

Human Interface Device

Instruction detection

Input or output

International Standard Organization

Thermal comfort standard

Kilo ohm

Meter

Square meter

Metabo lic rate

Mean radiant temperature

X111

I ms-1 Meter per second

NEP

°C

PC

PIC

PMV

p_m.

SLCHP

SMS

~F

USB

New Economy Policy

Degree Celcius

Personal computer

Programmable Integrated Circuit

Predicted Mean Vote

Post meridiem

Special Low Cost Housing Programme

Short Message Service

Micro farad

Universal serial bus

XIV

CHAPTER!

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Project Overview

Malaysia is one of developing countries in Asia and the government mainly

focuses on development pro gramme in the country. Since 1971, Malaysian

government had introduced low-cost houses under New Economic Policy (NEP) by

ex-prime minister, Allahyarham Tun Abdul Razak [1]. Thus, the policy of low-cost

houses which known as Special Low Cost Housing Programme (SLCHP) is one of

the main agenda for government to fulfill the housing demands of the citizens [2].

The purpose of this program is to provide Malaysian, particularly the low-income

categories, accessibility to adequate and affordable housing.

Low-cost house is a popular political agenda worldwide because it related to

·social economic stability and implication in a country [3]. The cooperation of

Malaysian government and private developers sectors in development of low-cost

house is to provide Malaysian, particularly the low-income categories, accessibility

to adequate and affordable housing [4].

1

Although Malaysian government has work towards providing an adequate

and affordable housing to the citizens, but most of the citizens still face some issues

and challenges especially for low-cost houses. As an example, many low-cost houses

are built without consideration on the issues such as thermal comfort and air

ventilation inside the building.

The aim of this project is to design adaptive cooling system for low-cost

houses. The designed cooling system is intended to reduce home temperature

especially during daytime and maintain the thermal comfort in environment of low­

cost houses. With adaptive system construction, graphical user interface (GUI)

program is designed to control and monitor the cooling system technology though

sensor controller circuit.

1.2 Problem Statements

Malaysia is one of developing countries in Asia which situated within the

equatorial zone of the earth. The weather in Malaysia benefits from a tropical climate

with high temperature and high humidity throughout the year. From Annual

Summary of Meteorological Observation of Malaysia Meteorological Department,

the weather temperatures are relatively uniform with average temperatures between

23.7°C to 31.3°C and the average relative humidity is in the range of67.0% to 95.0%

throughout a day [5]. Then, it may have an adverse impact on occupant in thermal

comfort of environment. Additionally, most of modern buildings in country which is

wann and humid climate have adverse effects on human discomfort [6].

2

The total population in Malaysia was 23 million persons in 2000 increased to

28 million persons in 2010 [7]. It proven that Malaysia is undergone a rapid growth

of population and would causes the issues of housing shortage. Due to high demand

oflow-cost houses and low-cost houses are built with less profit, some irresponsible

housing developers have built these houses without consideration of ventilation

condition and air filtration for low-cost houses. Other than that, the competition

among the housing developers, they prefer the design of houses that simple and

faster to construct, and uncomplicated materials. Furthermore, the house owners

mostly focus on the affordable prices and compound of the house when they buy

low-cost houses. Then, the issues of thermal discomfort in environment would be

noticeable after the house owners have occupied the houses.

Therefore, the occupants would fmd the solutions to achieve the level of

thermal comfort in their houses. Since they are from low-income categories and their

budgets are limited, they would not renovate their house to improve the air

circulation in the house. Moreover, the installation of air-conditioning also is not

their best solution because it increases their living cost and it is a burden for them.

The impact of air conditioning on electricity demand is a significant problem since

the peak electricity loads are increasing continuously [8]. Then, the design of this

project is best solution for them to achieve the thermal comfort in the houses.

3

1.3 Project Objectives

The aim of this project is to design adaptive cooling system for low-cost

houses. The objectives of this project are:

• To recognize and explore the issue and thermal comfort of tow-cost house

• To design a sensor system for ,adaptive cooling system to measure the

accuracy data

• To design an adaptive cooling system technology such that operation of the

technology can be controlled by the sensor in low-cost house

• To design a monitoring system through graphical user interface (OUJ)

program for collecting the accuracy data in low-cost house

1.4 Expected Outcomes

According to this project, the main expected outcome is to develop a flexible

and convenience cooling system technology. The designed cooling system is

intended to reduce home temperature and humidity during daytime and maintain

thermal comfort inside the low-cost houses. By mean of adaptive cooling system, the

operation of the cooling system is controlled by OUJ program though sensor

controller circuit.

For controller system construction, sensor controller circuit that consists of

microcontroller and sensors is designed. The purpose ofdesigned circuit is to control

and monitor the cooling system. Furthermore, the readings of temperature and

4

~usat Khidmat MakJumat Akademik VNIVERsm MAlAYSIA SARAWAK

humidity would be received and sensed by sensors. The microcontroller converts

analog input to digital output for GUI.

Other than that, sensor controller circuit should integrate with PC by serial

port or Universal Serial Bus (USB) port method. The accurate data ofair temperature

and relative humidity would be presented by GUI program which is developed in

Microsoft Visual Studio edition 2008 software. At the same time, the cooling system

can operates properly and maintain the thermal comfort inside the house while

temperature and humidity value out of the thermal comfort range. Overall, this

project must be done with the cooling system technology, sensor controller circuit,

and GUI program.

1.5 Report Outlines

This final year project report consists of five chapters. Chapter 1 gIves an

introduction of the entire project of adaptive low-cost home cooling system. At the

same time, the objectives of this project also included. The problem statements and

expected outcomes would be explained.

Chapter 2 gives a review of literature for issues and thermal comfort of low-

cost house, and principles of cooling system. The theory of designed system is

mentioned.

5

Chapter 3 explains the methodology during the project. The hardware and

software designs are also discussed. It covers the flowchart of each sub-system of

this project. The relevant components and software to be used are mentioned as well.

Chapter 4 discusses the architecture of controller system, data measurement

system, and cooling system. The progress of system integration is explained in this

chapter. The discussion and analysis on the result of air temperature and relative

humidity readings are also done in this chapter.

Chapter 5 covers the conclusions for this project and some recommendations

for implement of this project are included as well.

6